Determinants of inflationary performance: Corporatist structures vs. central bank autonomy

Thanks go to John Aldrich, Robert Bates, William Bernhard, Richard Burdekin, Henry Chappel, Dudley Wallace and Thomas Willett for suggestions and to Ted Smith for computational assistance.     

A CRITIQUE OF PROFESSOR CHURCH'S REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF VERTICAL AND CONGLOMERATE MERGERS ON COMPETITION

We discuss Professor Jeffrey Church's report to the EuropeanCommission in 2004 on the effects of vertical restraints andmergers. Although thorough and accurate, the report could bemisinterpreted by practitioners, as it does not emphasize thatmarket power is only a necessary condition for harm to competition,and that most vertical mergers that present the possibilityof competitive harm also present economic efficiencies thatare intrinsic to the integration.     

Regime transformation from below: Decentralization,local governance,and democratic reform in Nigeria

How realistic are democratic-governance strategies that emphasize local governance as a key component? Using Nigeria’s experience in local government and primary health care in the 1980s and 1990s as a case example, the article finds there were substantial shortfalls in local participation and program performance. These were caused by problems in the local political environment and local institutional design, in the national policy environment (particularly in the funding system), and by the stresses of structural adjustment, resource shortfalls, the natural physical environment, and weak leadership. These combined to create poor and inappropriate reward structures and lack of accountability. However, even though the Nigerian case was not successful, most of the specific problems that hurt it are remediable through policy changes at the national level. Several of these were under consideration at the time of the coups of 1992 and 1993.     

Columbia: Neglected dimensions of violence

Editor's note: Rosa Del Olmo has recently written on the same theme in: The Attack on the Supreme Court of Columbia: A Case Study of Guerrilla and Government ViolenceViolence. Aggression and Terrorism 2 (1988): 57–84.     

Cyprus: Federation Under International Safeguards

Constitutional engineering to overcome ethnoregional cleavagesis being put to a severe test on Cyprus, where Greek and Turkishcommunities haltingly endeavor to salvage a divided state Threeyears after independence in 1960, the attempt to govern throughfunctional federalism ended in civil war. Intervention by Greeceand Turkey in 1974 resulted in a de facto partitioning of therepublic into two ethnically homogeneous areas. Under UnitedNations auspices, communal elites bargain for a consociationalsettlement, balancing national autonomy and individual rights.The solution requires international safeguards guaranteeinga new constitution and providing for "free cities" under a bicommunaladministration. Failure of the international community to actwill lead to a partitionist solution as manifested by a growingacceptance of Turkish Cypriot statehood.     

The right to die: state courts lead where legislatures fear to tread

The right to die may be among the most legally complex and culturally sensitive areas of civil rights to emerge in our time. The thorny issues associated with a terminally ill individual's right to self-determination, and the disposition of individuals who are incompetent to make right to die decisions for themselves, promises to keep all parties involved - health care professionals, medical ethicists, families, lawyers, judges, and state legislators -busy for some time to come. To this point, the state courts have taken the lead in the right to die debate, while the state legislatures have tended to drag their collective feet. This article lays the case law groundwork for right to die decision making, then goes on to assay the legislative responses to the issue that have been rendered in the fifty states.     

Argentina: Two faces of the small and medium bourgeoisie

Research focused on the socio-economic and political attitudes of the medium and small bourgeois in Argentina during the Alfonsin Presidency. Data reveals clear position critical of the pro-big business orientation of the regime. However because of their shift away from productive activity towards the speculative, because of the increasing dependence on illegal sources of income (the underground economy), the small and medium size bourgeoisie were shifting toward the neo-liberal Right as a means of legalizing their income.     

Fertility,development, and family planning, 1970–1980: An analysis of cases weighted by population

A series of related studies (Freedman and Berelson, 1976; Mauldin and Berelson, 1978; and Tsui and Bogue, 1978) have presented empirical findings based on multiple regression analysis which indicated that family planning program effort (FP), as measured by an index developed by Lapham and Mauldin (1972), was the single most important predictor of (or influence on) fertility reduction in less-developed countries (LDCs). The basic results have been confirmed repeatedly. A more extensive data set was used to extend the analysis to a comparison of results of corss-sectional models circa 1970 and 1980. The study builds upon the results of past studies yet differs from them in several ways. All the variables in the present study were measured at 2 points in time: circa 1970 and circa 1980, allowing a comparison between cross-sectional models for 1970 and 1980. Among the cases included in this multivariate analysis was China, a country usually excluded for lack of data. The analysis was extend to 85 countries. Cases were weighted by population, having the effect of increasing the impact of larger countries such as India and China on the outcome of the analysis. Total fertility rate (TFR) was used as an indicator of fertility. For 1970, family planning program effort had the strongest direct influence on fertility (a result consistent with previous studies). Life expectancy at birth was the other direct influence. The direct influence of life expectancy at birth was less than that of family planning, but the total influence was greater. After life expectancy and family planning, school enrollment and relative educational status of women had the strongest indirect and total influences. The other variables all had a positive influence on fertility. When the total variance attributable was considered, directly and indirectly to each of the independent variables, urbanization, carlorie supply, and per capita gross national product all accounted for less than 5% of the variance in fertility, all of it indirect. Life expectancy, family planning, and school enrollment each explained (directly plus indirectly) more than 10% of the variance in fertility. The pattern differed somewhat for 1980. Calorie supply, per capita gross national product, and relative educational status of women had no influence, direct or indirect on fertility. Also for 1980, life expectancy had a stronger direct influence on fertility than family planning. Overall, life expectancy at birth, family planning program effort, and total school enrollment emerged as the principal influences on fertility.