High‐Speed Rail: Lessons for Policy Makers from Experiences Abroad

In April 2009, the U.S. government unveiled its blueprint for a national network of high‐speed passenger rail (HSR) lines, aimed at reducing traffic congestion, cutting national dependence on foreign oil, and improving rural and urban environments. In implementing such a project, it is essential to identify the factors that might influence decision making and the eventual success of the HSR project, as well as to foresee the obstacles that must be overcome. The authors review, summarize, and analyze the most important HSR projects carried out to date around the globe, focusing on the main concerns of HSR projects: their impact on mobility, the environment, the economy, and urban centers. The authors identify lessons for policy makers and managers who are implementing HSR projects.     

These rules are made for spending: testing and extending the law of 1/n

What is the influence of the rules of political representation on local spending? This research tests the law of 1/n in the Portuguese local context and finds that the law fails to apply. We suggest an alternative measure—the density of representation—to assess the impact of the rules of city council representation on local public expenditures. Density of representation is defined as the number of elected officials in the city council divided by city population. We find an S-shaped relationship between the density of representation and the level of local government expenditures. The level of municipal spending initially declines with increases in the density of representation, reflecting an increase in the ability of constituents to monitor their elected representatives. At higher levels of representation density, the relationship becomes positive, suggesting that the dynamics of the budgetary commons become salient. The relationship becomes negative again for extremely high density of representation owing to increases in the transaction costs of legislative decision-making. This paper discusses the implications of our findings for the reform of local government institutions and the rules of political representation.     

Poverty Impacts of Changes in the International Prices of Agricultural Commodities: Recent Evidence for Argentina (An Ex-Ante Analysis)

Argentina has benefited greatly from the increase in prices of agricultural commodities. With a large share of its population with low and medium-low incomes; however, a sizable part of households is likely to be adversely affected by the accompanying rise in the price of the consumption basket. An ex-ante analysis suggests that this is the case. Changes through a less obvious channel (that is, in factor incomes) are likely to be more beneficial to middle-income households. In general, all households experience losses, with poorer households being the most affected. When accounting for transfers financed through the collection of export taxes, poorer households benefit. In the absence of compensatory measures, increases in the prices of agricultural commodities could potentially have an important impact in terms of indigence and poverty.     

Third-worldism: sensibility and ideology in Uruguay – from Third Position to the thought of Carlos Real de Azúa

This article examines the trajectory of the concepts ‘Third World’ and ‘Third-worldism’ in Uruguay, and attempts to prove that, although Third-worldism developed thoroughly as sensibility, it did not have the same success as ideology. The article examines authors and intellectual groups who reflected on the Third World, and especially on ‘tercerismo’ (Third Position) – understood as a set of ideas related to Third-worldism but not part of Third-worldism as such. It next explains the importance of the thought of Carlos Real de Azúa, identified as the main ideologist of Third-worldism in Uruguay. The research shows as a result that there was great concern about the Third World, especially in the 1960s and the 1970s, expressed in articles, reports and speeches, among others. Nevertheless, a full conceptualisation was never realised, except in the contribution made by Real de Azúa. The article concludes that, paradoxically, ‘tercerismo’ blocked the development of more elaborated third-worldist thought in Uruguay.     

Recovery Risk and Labor Costs in Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Choice in the US Water Industry

We use an ordered logistic model to empirically examine the factors that explain varying degrees of private involvement in the US water sector through public–private partnerships. Our estimates suggest that a variety of factors help explain greater private participation in this sector. We find that the risk to private participants regarding cost recovery is an important driver of private participation. The relative cost of labour is also a key factor in determining the degree of private involvement in the contract choice. When public wages are high relative to private wages, private participation is viewed as a source of cost savings. We thus find two main drivers of greater private involvement: one encouraging private participation by reducing risk, and another encouraging government to seek out private participation in lowering costs.     

Death Due to Decapitation in Two Motorcyclists: A Description of a Unique Case and a Brief Review of the Literature

Deaths due to decapitation, especially related to traffic accidents, are rarely found in forensic practice. The present case involves a man and a woman who died from decapitation due to an unusual mechanism while they were riding on a motorbike down a mountain road. The autopsy, which was completed as a physics study, allowed the accident to be reconstructed as follows: A plastic cable that had detached from a timber‐transporting machine whipped the road and hit the two motorcyclists. The impact resulted in the complete severing of both riders’ heads. Involving different scientists in this accident investigation was crucial to understanding the dynamics of the accident. In fact, in addition to scene inspection and autopsy, a physics study was carried out on the cable and the clamp involved, which led to an explanation for the abrupt movement of the cable and, thus, to a thorough reconstruction of the accident.     

Network tasks and accountability: A configurational analysis of EU regulatory networks

Intergovernmental networks have become a prominent cooperative mechanism to deal with trans-boundary and interdependent problems. Yet, we still have limited knowledge of how these collaborative endeavours are governed, which is crucial to properly understanding how they function. This article empirically examines the structural governance configurations of rule-enforcing networks in the European Union. The article relies on data from 37 networks with rule-enforcing tasks and conducts a qualitative comparative analysis. We find three basic governance structure configurations used by rule-enforcing networks: first, a configuration with legal accountability, which is characterized by having a board of appeals; second, one with administrative accountability that, in addition to a board of appeals, has powerful executive boards and professional experts in the network plenary; and a third one with democratic accountability that incorporates legislative representatives in the network plenary. We argue that these results show how network tasks are related to accountability and governance.     

Why Do Municipalities Cooperate to Provide Local Public Services? An Empirical Analysis

Intermunicipal cooperation is being increasingly adopted in various countries as a part of local service delivery reforms. This article draws on survey data from Spain's municipalities to examine the reasons underpinning the decisions of local governments to engage in intermunicipal cooperation and privatisation. Our empirical analysis indicates that small municipalities prefer to rely on cooperation for reducing costs, while their larger counterparts prefer to privatise the delivery of services. By cooperating, scale economies can be achieved with lower transaction costs and fewer concerns for competition than is the case via private production.