Do Candidates Matter? Constituency-specific Vote Changes for Incumbent MPs, 1983–1987

The assumption that candidates make a difference to electoral outcomes in British general elections is tested through a comparison of the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Incumbent's Constituency-specific Vote Change (ICVC) between the June 1983 and June 1987 British general elections is measured by subtracting the average regional vote change for the incumbent's party from the constituency vote change registered by the incumbent. Regression analysis finds ICVC to be most significantly influenced in both the Labour and Conservative parties by the incumbent's length of tenure, displayed especially in the higher ICVC registered by first-term incumbents than by more senior incumbents. Variables indicating the security or insecurity of the seat in electoral terms are significantly related to ICVC in the Conservative but not in the Labour case. The findings for Labour indicate ICVC to be greater where electoral security is greater. This finding might be explained by successful Conservative party concentration on constituencies in which Labour incumbents appear to be vulnerable.     

Partisanship and the party system

The defining properties of party identification long established for the United States fail with some frequency to be replicated in electoral systems abroad. A number of plausible suggestions have been made to account for this system-level variability: Most of these have some face merit, but none taken alone is adequate to provide a full cross-system explanation. Variation in party system size or fractionalization has recently been discussed as another source of differential dynamics of party loyalties. Unfortunately, the conventional means of assessing party identification properties are subject to rather severe artifacts, typically ignored, when comparisons are made across systems of very different party size. The conceptual stakes underlying key methods options for such comparisons—most notably, between continuous and discrete statistical tools—are examined. The use of continuous statistics for systems of very multiple parties rests on an assumption that voters do in some degree regard these party systems as imbedded in a continuous space. A simple test for this assumption is mounted in four systems and unsurprisingly it shows very clear support. Analysis of residuals beyond this obvious result add several points of less obvious information about the distribution of party affect in such systems.     

Precedence,privilege, preferences,plus Pareto principle: Some examples on egalitarian ethics and economic efficiency

It is demonstrated how economic theory of justice as fairness, Pareto improvements on situations involving equity, can be used to analyze the ethics contents of distributions of rights and privileges. The analysis makes use of the concept of a veil of ignorance to define a status quo. A property right to an ability or a privilege is interpreted as a transparency in the veil in respect to this ability or privilege. Three different examples are investigated, focusing on rights as collective goods, non-transferable abilities, and privileges as inherent rights.Revised version of Presidential address to the annual meeting of the European Public-Choice Society in Linz, Austria, 29 March to 1 April, 1989. I thank Johann K. Brunner, Josef Falkinger, and Björn Sandvik for many helpful comments.     

The state of nature in the shadow of contract formation: Adding a missing link to J.M. Buchanan's social contract theory

The social contract theory of J.M. Buchanan provides no clear-cut answer on the question which one of the multitude of possible Pareto-efficient contracts is chosen by individuals who shape a contract in an (imaginary) state of nature. This deficiency is remedied in this paper by adding the Nash-bargaining theory. It seems to be in line with at least part of Buchanan's reasoning. Whereas for Buchanan the configuration of contract depends unilaterally on the natural equilibrium of the state of nature, we are able to show that the parties' (rational) contractual expectations have repercussions for their behavior in the state of nature. That is why the location of the natural equilibrium proves to be heavily dependent on the chosen bargaining theory. The implication is that assessing the legitimacy of a given constitutional order or contract (on the basis of the natural equilibrium) depends on the particular bargaining theory chosen to solve the underlying constitutional distribution problem. I am grateful to D. Andrews, D. Schmidtchen and U. Witt for helpful comments on earlier drafts. The usual caveat applies.     

The optimal size of government

In the economic analysis of the theory of government, two views of government are evident. The Pigovian view sees government as a benevolent actor striving to correct for the inadequacies and excesses of an unrestrained marketplace. The ‘Public Choice’ view of government portrays government as the tool of special interest groups as likely to generate distortions as to correct them. In this paper, a model of government that incorporates both views will be developed and then empirically tested. The model developed assumes that all expenditures by the government are inputs into the private sector production. Treating government expenditures as inputs into the production of private sector output, there is some optimal size of government that maximizes private sector output. The model incorporates a general production function for private sector output. Output is a function of private labor, private capital, and government expenditures. The Pigovian and Public Choice views of government are reflected in the assumed impact of G on the marginal productivities of L and K. The model is tested using United States data and a Cobb-Douglas production function. Estimates indicate that the 1983 level of government expenditures exceeds by 87 percent the level that would maximize private sector output. Reducing government from $ 491 billion to $ 263 billion and shifting the freed labor to the private sector would increase output from $ 1187 billion to $ 1451 billion.