Coercive Leadership

We develop a model of leadership in which an informed leader has some degree of coercive influence over her followers (agents). Agents benefit from coordination but face two distinct challenges: dispersed information and heterogeneous preferences. The leader's coercive power facilitates coordination by weakening the effect presented by both of these challenges through “binding” agents to a strategically chosen policy. The leader's policy choice becomes more informative to the agents about the leader's privately held information as her coercive capacity increases. By adjusting her policy choice in response to available private and public information, the coercive leader achieves her preferred average of agents' actions, and in so doing, neutralizes the possibly deleterious coordinating influence of public information. We develop implications of our analysis for understanding autocratic leadership in different political and organizational contexts.     

Polarized preferences versus polarizing policies

Much of contemporary political debate in the United States focuses on the issue of polarization: specifically, its causal antecedents and its consequences for policymaking and political conflict. In this article, we argue that partisan preference polarization—conventionally defined as the difference in the favored policy positions of legislators from the two major parties—is not a sufficient statistic for potential political conflict in national politics . Rather, a well-defined measure of potential conflict must take into account (1) the locations of status quo policies and proposed alternatives; and (2) the shape of underlying utility functions. We propose measures of the likely contentiousness of a given status quo policy and of a proposal to move that policy. We then demonstrate the usefulness of these measures using estimates of utility function and final passage vote parameters on enacted legislation from the 111th US Senate (2009–2011).     

Reliability of the methods applied to assess age minority in living subjects around 18 years old. A survey on a Moroccan origin population

We present a review of a population of 114 immigrant Moroccan males for which an age estimation was requested. The subjects' real chronological age was confirmed by the Moroccan Embassy in Spain. The confirmed age range was between 13 and 25, with an average age of 18.1 years and a standard deviation of 2.03. The following tests were performed to arrive at the forensic estimation of age: general physical examination, carpus X-ray (Greulich and Pyle method) and dental orthopantomography to determine the degree of maturity of the third inferior molars (Demirjian's method). Carpus X-ray (skeletal age) was the most useful method, followed by Demirjian's method (dental age), as prediction factors of a chronological age of over or under 18. The combination of skeletal and dental age variables represented a significant improvement in the prediction of the chronological age of the subjects in this population, reducing the number of ethically unacceptable test errors to a minimum.     

Gordon Tullock’s contributions to bioeconomics

This article discuss Gordon Tullock’s contributions to bioeconomics: His contributions to the bioeconomics of non-human societies, his impact on second and third generation bioeconomists, and the founding of the Journal of Bioeconomics.     

Forensic age estimation on digital X-ray images: Medial epiphyses of the clavicle and first rib ossification in relation to chronological age

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in forensic sciences about forensic age estimation in living subjects by means of radiological methods. This research was conducted on digital thorax X-rays to test the usefulness of some radiological changes in the clavicle and first rib. The sample consisted in a total of 123 subjects of Spanish origin (61 men and 62 women; age range: 5-75 years). From all subjects, a thorax posterior-anterior radiograph was obtained in digital format. Scoring for fusion of medial epiphyses of the clavicle was carried out by Schmeling's system and ossification of the costal cartilage of the first rib by Michelson's system. Degree of ossification and epiphyseal fusion were analyzed in relation with known age and sex of these subjects. The results give a minimum age of >20 years for full fusion of the medial epiphysis of the clavicle (Stages 4 and 5). Concerning the first rib, all subjects with the final Stage 3 of ossification were above 25 years of age. These results suggest that the first rib ossification might become an additional method to the ones so far recommended for forensic age estimation in subjects around 21. New research would be desirable to confirm this suggestion.     

Game Theory, Information, and Deliberative Democracy

We contend that, with a suitably broad notion of rationality and a diverse set of motivations, the game-theoretic tradition is particularly well suited for generating insights about effects of deliberative institutions and that progress in the development of deliberative democratic theory hinges on making proper sense of the relationship between game-theoretic and normative theoretic approaches to deliberation. To advance this view, we explore the central methodological issues at the core of that relationship and address the arguments raised against the relevance of game-theoretic work on deliberation. We develop a framework for thinking about the differences in how the normative and the game-theoretic approaches frame and answer questions about deliberation and articulate an approach to a deliberative democratic theory that builds on the strengths of both of these theoretic traditions, properly informed by empirical scholarship.     

The enigma of the kula ring: Gift-exchanges and primitive law and order

There is no such thing there as a free gift.¹Exchanges are peacefully resolved wars and wars are the result of unsuccessful transactions. ²As long as ceremonial exchanges continued to take place assurance, that peace prevailed, the linked groups could continue to carry on other mutually advantageous activities, such as trade in ordinary goods …³     

Social Identity and Electoral Accountability

In a laboratory experiment, we explore the effects of group identities on the principal‐agent relationship between voters and representatives. In an adverse selection framework with observable effort, voters can choose to condition their reelection choices on representatives' effort alone, beliefs about representatives' competence, or both of those jointly. We show that inducing social identities increases the weight of representatives' effort in voters' reelection decisions. Further, when voters and representatives share a social identity, representatives tend to invest less effort and their effort is independent of their competence. In contrast, “out‐group” representatives compensate for lower competence with higher effort and reduce effort when voters are likely to perceive them as competent. Voters often adopt laxer retention standards for representatives who are fellow group members and are responsive to evidence of other‐regardingness from out‐group representatives, but some voters actively resist treating representatives with shared identity more favorably and “overcorrect” as a consequence.     

The political economy of swarming in honeybees: Voting-with-the-wings,decision-making costs,and the unanimity rule

The political economy of bee swarming offers a fascinating study of collective action in biological systems. Various aspects of the organization of swarming have been explained in this paper as devices bees have evolved to economize on information and decision-making costs associated with the economics and politics of establishing a new nest site.