A Public Choice Analysis of Endangered Species Listings

Sizable economic consequences may resultfrom listing under the Endangered SpeciesAct (ESA). Potentially adversely affectedparties will attempt to use the politicalprocess to protect their interests. Thequestion is, “are listing determinationssubject to political manipulation?” Inthis paper, we explore empirically thepossibility that implementation of the ESAis determined, in part, by politicalconsiderations. Specifically, weinvestigate whether states with strongcongressional representation are able touse their political muscle to reduce thenumber of listings in their states, ascompared to states with weak congressionalrepresentation. Controlling for otherfactors, we find that states with greaterrepresentation on the U.S. Fish andWildlife Service’s budgetary oversightsubcommittee in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives have significantly fewerESA listings than states with weakerrepresentation on that subcommittee.     

Tinpots,Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights

Ronald Wintrobe (1990, 1998) has recently provided atheoretical foundation for estimating equations that attemptto explain the dependence of civil liberties and politicalrights in non-democratic regimes on the history of economicgrowth. This theory suggests that data from different kinds ofnon-democratic countries should not be pooled without allowingcoefficients to vary with regime type. It also placesinteresting restrictions on the signs of the coefficients ofeconomic growth in equations explaining freedom in the typesof regimes Wintrobe identifies. In this paper, we employ theserestrictions to test Wintrobe's theory. Some additionalhypotheses about the difference between democratic andnon-democratic regimes and about the role of education, notconsidered by Wintrobe, are also investigated.The results indicate clearly that the relationship between thedegree of freedom – as measured by the sum of the Gastilindexes of civil liberties and political rights – andeconomic growth varies significantly across all types ofregimes. Totalitarians (that attempt to maximize power) areclearly different than tinpots (that just attempt to maintainpower) in this respect, and non-democratic regimes differ fromdemocracies. Other aspects of the theory are partiallyconfirmed. In particular, in totalitarian regimes, positivegrowth reduces freedom, and negative growth increases it insome specifications. The theory predicts the opposite patternfor tinpots, and we do find that negative growth reducesfreedom in tinpot regimes. However, positive growth in tinpotsalso appears to reduce freedom in some cases, which is not inaccord with the theory. Secondary schooling has a positive effect on freedom, as inprevious empirical work, a result that is shown here to holdeven when each type of regime is considered separately. Butthe effect of primary schooling is different: in tinpot andtotalitarian regimes, but not in democracies, primaryschooling is associated with reduced freedom.     

Conceptualising State Capacity: Comparing Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Strengthening the state is central to the post-communist reform agenda. Here, state capacity combines organisational, material and social resources and is conceptualised along four dimensions: ideational, political, technical and implementational. This conceptualisation is applied to a comparative, survey-based analysis in 2002 of 125 medium-ranking officials in two post- communist Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The findings reveal that although Kazakhstan's controlled economic reform programme and natural resources have placed it in a stronger position to develop its state capacity, important ideational, political and implementational problems pose long-term obstacles for reform. In turn, Kyrgyzstan's early liberalisation in the absence of economic and social resources may be serving to undermine its state capacity.     

The Federal Line Item Veto Experiment: After the Supreme Court Ruling,What's Next?

The federal line item veto has ceased to exist, thanks to the Supreme Court's June 1998 ruling invalidating the expansion of the president's rescission authority that was contained in the Line Item Veto Act. This article reviews the application of the Act during 1997, its effect on spending and the deficit, the judicial reaction to its use, and the prospects for the restoration of some version of the power. President Clinton was quite restrained in the use of his new power, with the exception of his cancellations in the Military Construction appropriation bill; these were ultimately restored by the Congress. Because of the president's restraint, the Line Item Veto Act had a miniscule affect on spending and the deficit; total cancellations represented less than .04 percent of FY98 discretionary budget authority. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held that the Act violated Article I, Section 7 because it created a Constituionally impermissable way for the president to change laws. There is no clear fallback position for supporters of the Act; alternatives are either difficult to enact, hard to administer, or too weak to be considered an effective substitute. Given the problems in enacting any alternative, it may be that the federal line item veto will end up only as a historical anomaly.     

Contracting–out social services

Abstract: Despite the enormous share of social services in government spending and the strong incentives on government to rationalize services, the alternative service delivery (asd) literature has given little attention to social–service delivery. In our paper, we review current approaches taken to social–service delivery in Ontario by the Ministry of Community and Social Services (mcss). Although the mcss retains responsibility for the social–services system, it provides social services almost exclusively through private non–profit agencies under purchase of service contracts. Two themes emerge from our examination of these relationships. First, the standard privatization model has limited application to social–services delivery. Contracts are generally not awarded in a competitive fashion, and contract termination discipline is rarely applied. Given the inadequacies of current performance measures for social services, monitoring contract performance is difficult. Second, the success of attempts to shift provision to private non–governmental entities is intimately linked to the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms, especially outcome–based performance measures. Improving performance measurement is therefore an important priority. In addition to advocating further research into the effectiveness of social services, one interesting mcss initiative has been to look to client communities to help monitor the performance of agencies. We conclude that among the different institutional approaches to social–service delivery, contracting with non–profits is the one that currently seem most appropriate. Sommaire: Malgré la part énorme des dépenses gouvernementales consacrée aux services sociaux et malgré les efforts gouvemementaux pour rationaliser les services, les ouvrages publiés sur la prestation de services par des moyens de rechange n'ont consacré que peu d'attention à la prestation des services sociaux. Nous examinons dam cet article les méthodes adoptées pour la prestation des services sociaux en Ontario par le ministére des Services sociaux et communautaires (mssc). Même s'il retient la responsabilité du réseau des services sociaux, le mssc foumit les services sociaux presque exclusivement par I'intermédiaire d'organismes privés à but non lucratif, en vertu de contrats d'achat de services. En examinant ces rapports, nous en dégageons deux thémes. Premiérement, le modéle de privatisation standard ne s'applique que de maniére limitée à la prestation des services sociaux. Les contrats ne sont généralement pas accordés de maniére concurrentielle, et on n'utilise que rarement la résiliation de contrats en tant que mesure disciplinaire. II est difficile de surveiller la qualité d'exécution des contrats, vu l'insuffisance des mesures de rende–ment actuelles concernant les services sociaux. Deuxièmement, le transfert de I'exé–cution aux organismes privés non gouvernementaux ne peut réussir qu'en présence de mécanismes de responsabilisation adéquats, et en particulier de moyens permet–tant de mesurer le rendement en fonction des résultats obtenus. I1 importe donc d'améliorer les moyens de mesure du rendement. Selon le mssc, en plus des recher–ches suppéementaires concernant l'efficacite des services sociaux, il faut faire appel aux groupes de clients pour aider À surveiller le rendement des organismes. En conclusion, parmi les diverses méthodes institutionnelles de prestation des services sociaux, la sous–traitance faisant appel aux secteurs à but non lucratif semble çtre aujourd'hui la plus appropriwaee. [I]t is no exaggeration to say the state and local governments tend not to know what results their social service contracts are buying. Because competition is low, they have little opportunity to test the market to see what alternatives they have. Few resources are spent to look past what contractors themselves report. The political system has few incentives to dig deeper and many more incentives to maintain the status quo— The problems with oversight underline earlier observations: whatever advantages contracting–out for social services might produce, greater efficiency through market–tested competition is not one of them. State and local governments are engaging in the equivalent of a shopping trip while blindfolded, with little effort spent to squeeze the tomatoes or thump the watermelons     

Whether one votes and how one votes

The aim of this paper is to determine if whether one votes effects the vote that is cast. Using an economic model of voting and observed voting results on nuclear power referenda, the answer is a resounding yes. Overcoming registration, turnout, and “roll off” hurdles dramatically increases the odds of voting against nuclear power. Indeed, participation swamps both economic and preference variables in the explanation of nuclear power voting outcomes. The lesson is that there is a structure to participation at the polls that should not be ignored by those interested in analyzing voting outcomes.     

Pre-electoral coalitions in comparative perspective: A test of existing hypotheses

Despite the vast coalition literature, pre-electoral coalitions have never been at the center of any systematic, cross-national research. Given their prevalence and potential impact on government composition and policies, this represents a serious omission in our knowledge of coalitions. I begin to remedy this situation by testing two hypotheses found in the literature on party coalitions. The first is that pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form in disproportional systems if there are a sufficiently large number of parties. The second is that pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form if voters face high uncertainty about the identity of future governments. These hypotheses are tested using a new dataset comprising legislative elections in 22 advanced industrialized countries between 1946 and 1998. The results of the statistical analysis support the first hypothesis, but not the second.     

Federal Budgeting After September 11th: A Whole New Ballgame,or Is It Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Federal budgeting has undergone some profound changes since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Large surpluses that existed prior to September 11th and were forecast to continue have been replaced by equally large and intractable deficits. The consensus around a macro‐level norm for federal budgeting has completely broken down. In other ways, the federal budget process has not changed at all. Despite the emphasis on defense and homeland security, domestic discretionary spending is still continuing unabated, as it has since the late 1980s. Further, the federal government continues to have chronic difficulty adopting its budget in a timely fashion.