Gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act of 1982: A public choice analysis of turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives

The present paper uses various data sets and statistical techniques to examine the outcome of gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act of 1982 on turnover rates in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the competitiveness in Party primaries for House seats. Evidence presented here suggests that political redistricting at the federal level (namely for U.S. House seats) has tended to favor incumbents in both the Party primaries and general elections. In fact, some results suggest that turnover rates (for 1988) are between 8.9 and 10.3 percentage points lower within states that engaged in such redistricting efforts. Our findings generally support the main tenets of the public choice view of legislator behavior.     

Class struggle in rural Maharashtra (India): Towards a new perspective

In the state of Maharashtra, in western India, the rural population can be usefully divided into tribals and non‐tribals, and it is only among tribals that there have been independent and effective movements of the rural poor. Some of the implications of this are examined and an attempt is made to explain why it should be so. Orthodox Marxist explanations have tended to run in terms of tribal characteristics conducive to organisation and the absence of such characterstics among the non‐tribal poor. Explanations of this kind are rejected. Within a political economy framework, in an analysis which is historical, the author, while giving due weight to the economic, assigns to ideology or consciousness more than just a site in the superstructure. Among tribals, the attempt to preserve identity, a consciousness of total distrust of outsiders, and an identification of all outsiders as exploiters are traced and shown to have been important in tribal movements of the rural poor. Among non‐tribals, the role of caste consciousness in relation to peasant strata in preventing the emergence of independent rural poor movements is given prominence, and the primacy of caste intervention in the class struggle posited. Much Marxist analysis of these issues has been rendered sterile by a refusal to contemplate such explanations.     

Legislative Television as an Institutional Entry Barrier: The Impact of C-SPAN2 on Turnover in the U.S. Senate, 1946–1998

The present study examines the impactof televised U.S. Senate sessions (byC-SPAN2) on turnover rates in the U.S.Senate over the period 1946–1998. Using atheoretical model wherein politicalservices are viewed as search/experiencegoods, it is argued that there are manyparliamentary procedures available to U.S.Senators (e.g., filibustering, SpecialOrder Speeches, etc.) that serve them aslow-cost forms of persuasive advertising. These outlets provide opportunities forpolitical ``grandstanding'' on popular issueswhich challengers would have to spend largesums of money to combat and/or replicate. In this way C-SPAN (potentially) servesincumbent Senators as an entry barrier.     

Differential adoption of modern rice technology and regional wage differential in Nepal

In Nepal, which consists of ecologically distinct regions, the concentration of the adoption of modern rice varieties in the favourable rice growing areas of the country has raised fears that regional income disparities have widened. This study shows that greater demand for hired labour due to the adoption of modern rice varieties has induced permanent and seasonal migration from unfavourable to favourable areas. This appears to have largely equalised average wage rates across different production environments. Thus, as far as labour income is concerned, benefits from the modern varieties have been widely shared.     

Has Legislative Television Changed Legislator Behavior?: C-SPAN2 and the Frequency of Senate Filibustering

Using data from 1959–1998, this studyexamines the impact of legislativetelevision (C-SPAN2) on the number offilibusters in the United States Senate. As previous work has suggested, theinstitutional rules of the federallegislative branch of government in theU.S. often allow for politicalgrandstanding and posturing, and theseactivities are enhanced with the presenceof television cameras on the legislativefloor. Like those previous studies, thepresent work builds a theoretical modelwherein political services are consideredsearch/experience goods, and serviceproviders (federal legislators) areexpected utility maximizers who areconcerned with promoting their policypreferences and their re-electionprospects. Poisson model estimates suggestthat the presence of legislative televisionhas worked to increase the filibuster countin the Senate. As a result, such posturingand positioning on the issues by incumbents(in front of television cameras) is costlyfor challengers to replicate and likelycontributes to lower turnover rates in thelegislative branch.     

Output effects of devaluation: Evidence from Asia

We study the effect of devaluation on output in six developing countries of Asia. In an empirical model that includes monetary, fiscal, and external variables, we examine the impact of devaluation as the effect of real exchange depreciation and alternatively as the effect of nominal devaluation and changes in the foreign‐to‐domestic price ratio. We find that with few exceptions a devaluation fails to make any effect on output over any length of time — short run, intermediate run or long run. Whatever effect on output we are able to uncover comes from the relative price level (the ratio of foreign to domestic prices) but not from nominal devaluation.