Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.     

Private foreign asset accumulation,not just capital flight: Evidence from the Philippines

External debt problems have been accompanied in many developing countries with large private capital outflows. The latter phenomenon is usually identified in the literature as ‘capital flight’. This article argues that private foreign asset accumulation is a more appropriate term and compares a great variety of definitions and measurement methods and applies these to Philippine data for 1971–88. Outcomes show striking differences in assessment of the magnitude of the phenomenon. In the preferred definition of this study applied to the Philippines, unrecorded workers remittances from abroad, a factor omitted in other studies, represent a major source of foreign exchange earnings which indirectly support private foreign asset accumulation. Other definitions appear to severely underestimate private capital outflows. Econometric evidence on the causes of private foreign asset acquisition shows a strong sensitivity to the applied definition. Regression analysis for six alternative definitions shows that the expected real exchange rate depreciation and the real foreign‐domestic interest rate differential are ‐ in line with portfolio theory ‐ important determinants in the case of nearly all alternative measures, except for those that attempt to define a narrow ‘capital flight’ concept. Other determinants found significant are the availability of external finance and the previous year stock of private foreign assets. Debt‐fuelled private capital outflows are associated with the political economy of public external borrowing and the segmented nature of the foreign exchange market in the Philippines. Stock‐adjustment behaviour in the acquisition of private foreign assets in turn is interpreted as being a result of a simultaneous decision‐making process determining consumption demand and portfolio choice of high‐income Philippine households to satisfy demands related to their international lifestyles. These results have important welfare implications and policy consequences.     

Savings,investment and foreign capital flows: Have capital markets become more integrated?

How mobile is capital across countries? Does the expansion of world financial markets in the 1970s and 1980s reflect a tendency towards one integrated world capital market, accessible for both industrialised and developing countries? Or, alternatively, are savings and investment rates for each economy closely tied because of international capital market imperfections? This article critically assesses recent studies that have tested these hypotheses empirically for industrialised countries, presents new evidence and expands data analysis to include the group of developing countries. Contrary to recent studies it is concluded that across industrialised countries domestic investment and savings are now much less closely linked than in the 1960s. But the larger capital market integration does not extend to the group of developing countries despite their increased use of funds from international financial markets to finance domestic investment. The exploratory nature of the data analysis only permits to draw some suggestive, though important, conclusions for economic theory and policy.     

Demonstrating Access to Public Services Diagrammatically

The Nomogramma di Gandy is a practical analytical tool and presentational method that can be applied to the subject of access to public services, such as universities, prisons, and hospitals. Illustrative examples are provided. It is flexible, requires minimal data, and can compare access across many geographical areas in one presentation. It addresses the need to appreciate the dynamics that can exist behind summary statistical analyses that focus on net changes, and can show trends over time. Such visual scanning of multiple data points and their relative juxtapositions, enables many common thinking errors to be minimized, if not completely avoided.     

The Spies Who Loved Them: The Blairs in Barcelona, 1937

In recent years, and particularly around the time of his birth-centenary in 2003, George Orwell's reputation has come under a cloud. Both his unexampled honesty as a writer and his stainless political idealism have been brought into question. This article takes a further tentative step into this hitherto forbidden region by exploring the connections of Eric Blair and Eileen O'Shaughnessey with various espionage agents and intelligence networks in Barcelona in the spring of 1937. Although the argument is founded on a range of original contemporary documentation, as with many Spanish Civil War stories, facts are complicated and conclusions necessarily provisional.     

Federal Reserve transparency: The more things change, the more they stay the same?

The calculus of electoral politics and the central bank’s bureaucratic objectives can explain the recent trend toward greater Federal Reserve transparency and can shed light on the likelihood that this trend will continue. If incumbent politicians see no electoral advantage in pressuring the Fed to become still more transparent, and if the Fed sees no benefit to greater transparancy, then further changes in current practice are unlikely. Private sector agents will continue to face a significant degree of uncertainty about the Fed’s policy objectives and about the information that policymakers consider in the monetary policy decision process.     

Reconstructing Insurance Law: The Law Commissions' Consultation Paper

In July 2007 the English and Scottish Law Commissions published the consultation paper Insurance Law – Non-disclosure and Breach of Warranty (hereafter LCCP) which sets out in detail the Commissions' provisional proposals for the reform of insurance contract law with particular reference to the key areas of utmost good faith, warranties and agency. This article analyses, from a critical standpoint, the LCCP's principal conclusions and recommendations. It begins by noting, as a means of demonstrating that the current reform process should be informed by modern industry practices, that the ways in which modern insurance contracts are concluded differ significantly from those when insurance law was last reviewed by the Law Commission in 1980. The article then discusses the dichotomy between consumer and business insurance given that this distinction underpins the LCCP and its approach towards reforming the pre-contractual duty of good faith. By way of backdrop to the analysis, we consider the approach taken towards reforming the law governing intermediaries acting for prospective assureds during the disclosure process. Finally, the proposed rules for warranties and similar terms are examined. It is argued that the proposal to retain continuing warranties in business insurance contracts will, if implemented, represent a missed opportunity to rid insurance contracts of terms long criticised as draconian and disproportionate in their effect.