THE PLURALITY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING POLICYMAKINC: SCHOOL REFORM LEGISLATION IN THE AMERICAN STATES, 1982–84

This paper attempts to explore recent efforts of American state legislatures to improve the quality of public schools. Which state legislatures have passed school reform legislation? At what aspects of public education is this reform legislation aimed? Are there significant variations across states in such reform legislation? What has contributed most to the passage of such legislation? Is it the socioeconomic characteristics of individual states or the structural and procedural characteristics of their legislative branch that better explain school reform legislation? Analysis of data from the 50 states reveals greater variation in legislative results that reform public schools. The regional locus of most reform was the south. Most importantly, school reform legislation was found to be influenced by the interaction of a multitude of divergent forces. This finding suggests that researchers interested in the determinants of legislative action must move beyond analysis of whether economic or political forces shape legislative outcomes to inquire how economic, political and other forces interact when a given reform effort reaches the legislative halls of the states.     

Is Television Bad for Your Health? Behavior and Body Image of the Adolescent “Couch Potato”

This article examines the potential health effects of television. A survey of 1035 Flemish 17- and 18-year-olds shows that eating snacks and drinking regularly accompany viewing. Television was also shown to influence sleeping and family meals. Heavy viewers did not, however, appear to be more passive than lighter viewers. Their indulgence in sports did not differ, but content-specific relationships with going out appear to exist. In this group no link between viewing and obesity was found, but viewing was significantly related to various aspects of people's self assessments regarding their weight, their ideal weight and their looks. Particular attention was given to those television programs that portray idealized bodies. Generally, a distinction was made between men and women because many body-, weight-, and health-related factors may be culture and gender specific.Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders)     

When is 100% inspection not enough? An analysis of three pickup truck front wheel assembly failures

The loss of a cotter pin in the front wheel assembly of cars and trucks has been a problem for several years. This is shown by the fact that the automobile manufacturers have been committed to a 100% inspection of the process for installing them on cars and trucks. In this paper, three accident cases are presented, along with a method by which the forensic engineer can determine if a cotter pin has ever been installed on the front wheel assembly. Testing was done to show what the spindle would look like if the cotter pin had been installed properly and forcibly removed. Photographs show both the accident and test spindle for comparison.     

The Case for Supply-Side Economics Revisited: The Effect of Time Preference

Despite some legitimate criticisms that are acknowledged, the basic idea behind the Laffer curve analysis of the 1980s is theoretically sound. Some of the fallacies and flaws that subsist in standard accounts of the general effects of taxation can be related to the fact that time preference is not taken into account. The primary significance of time preference has been insufficiently recognized in the mainstream literature. Apart from Buchanan's refinements of the Laffer curve analysis and besides the widespread recognition of the phenomenon of time preference by economists of the so-called Austrian school, amazingly little attention has been paid to it. This article constitutes an attempt to help remedy this situation. Moreover the Austrian analysis provides valuable insights concerning the problem of the incidence of taxation that haven't received proper recognition either.     

Government spending cycles: Ideological or opportunistic?

This paper examines whether partisan and opportunistic motives affect government expenditure growth in the Netherlands. The time series analysis, covering the period 1953–1993, allows for different types of government spending. In general, spending is inspired by ideological and opportunistic motives: all government expenditure categories show an upward drift during election times and the ‘partisan’ motives behind government spending are clearly revealed: left-wing cabinets attach greater importance to social security and health care than right-wing cabinets and right-wing cabinets value expenditure on infrastructure and defense more than left-wing parties.     

A political economic analysis of labor migration and income redistribution

We present a two-country political economic model of income redistribution with internationally mobile labor. Migration can be exogenous and/or endogenous (i.e., determined by labor income differentials). Political influence is determined by the size and homogeneity of the groups, where the latter can be affected by immigration. We show that immigration can increase the transfers to, and the income of, the mobile group. We also investigate the possibility of migration regulation, tax-transfer policy competition and coordination and, finally, coordination of regulation policies. It is shown that the selection of any of those regimes will depend on the particular distribution of political influence among the relevant social groups in the two countries.

     

The ruthless Fed: A critique of the AST hypothesis

This paper examines the hypothesis that the Great Contraction was the result of rational rent-seeking by members of the Federal Reserve System. In contrast to the AST hypothesis, evidence on the share prices of member banks that survived the contraction suggests that the owners of these banks suffered an absolute decline in real wealth and a decline relative to a broad spectrum of other investment alternatives. Furthermore, monetary surprises had no statistically discernible effect on the share prices of these banks. This evidence conflicts with the notion that rational rent-seeking would lead the owners of member banks and their bureaucratic conspirators in the Federal Reserve System to unleash a policy with the goal of contracting the money supply by 35 percent.     

CHANGING PRACTICES AND CONCEPTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IN URBAN GOVERNMENT: THE GREATER BRISBANE EXPERIENCE

Abstract: Since the commencement of the Greater Brisbane scheme in 1925, a number of different ways of organising the executive function have been provided for in the legislation. These have included a mayor elected at large as chief executive officer; an appointed city manager model, which was never activated; a quasi-cabinet model, with the mayor being elected by the council rather than at large; a "weak" collective executive committee, akin to the early 20th century "board of control" arrangements in Canada, the mayor being elected at large and standing committees of council possessing substantial policy formulation powers; a stronger collective executive in theory, alongside which something akin to the American "strong mayor with chief administrative officer" model operated in practice; a strong collective executive, with the mayor once again elected indirectly, and weak standing committees of aldermen retained; a return to something like the original mayor-as-CEO arrangement; and finally, a strengthened version of the initial "mayor-as-CEO with chief administrative officer" model. These changes are traced chronologically and a general assessment is offered in conclusion.