Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Constitutional Design And Law: The Political Economy Of Cabinet And Congressional Government, Matthew S. R. Palmer

The Hon Justice Matthew Palmer

The dissertation takes a political economy approach to constitutional design and legislation in the Westminster (Cabinet) and US (Congressional) models of government. Part I develops the economics of comparative political organization by constructing a theoretical framework for analyzing constitutional design. Part II applies the framework to distinguish the essences of the Cabinet and Congressional systems of constitutional design in the contexts of US and Canadian federal government. Part III analyzes the effects of the different constitutional designs on the processes of legislating in each system and on the substantive characteristics of legislation in each system. The analysis is subjected to …

Indirect Transfers In Trade Among Former Soviet Union Republics: Sources, Patterns, And Policy Responses In The Post-Soviet Period, Lucjan T. Orlowski

WCBT Faculty Publications

Reports on indirect transfers in trade among the former Soviet Union Republics. The Former Soviet Union (FSU) was composed of 15 republics which were very unevenly endowed with human, physical and natural resources. To contain regional imbalances within the Union and to integrate all republics into a tight and centrally commanded division of labour, the central government operated a scheme of vertical fiscal redistribution between the Union budget and the republican budgets. Through this system poorer republics became net receivers of direct transfers and richer republics became net donors. This scheme, which collapsed with the dissolution of the Union in …

Introducing: The Survey Of Professional Forecasters, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

Forecasts play a crucial role in the economy. Businesses won't hire workers as readily if they think the economy may go into a recession soon. Long-term interest rates will rise if people in the financial markets expect inflation to increase. And firms are less likely to borrow money for new investment spending today if they think interest rates will soon decline.

Forecasts are important for many decisions, but not many people have the knowledge and experience to forecast economic variables well. It makes sense, therefore, for people to rely on the forecasts of experts. One easy way to get these …

The Distributional Effects Of Fiscal And Trade Reform In Egypt, Mona Aboul-Kheir

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Private Sector Bureaucratic Behavior In Egypt: A Case Study Of The American University In Cairo, Nathaniel Gordon Knox

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Some Factors Affecting Crude Oil Production In Egypt, Dalia Mohamed Abou Senna

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Foreign Capital Inflows On Savings In Egypt, Khaled Abdel Fattah

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Attitudes Towards The Market And The State In Post-Communist Europe, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper examines the level and sources of suppon for the market-oriented reforms in East-Central Europe and the relationship between these attitudes and political trust in the governments. The analysis is based on data collected in a common public opinion survey on social, economic and political justice implemented in the spring and summer of 1991 in eleven countries: Russia. Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany (east and west), Holland, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.

The survey results suggest some measure of caution and concern regarding the possibilities for a successful transition to market democracy in the former …

1993 American Incentive System Almanac, Don P. Diffine Ph.D.

Belden Center Monographs

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

PHILIP E GRAVES

A model of the optimal speed limit is developed which explicitly recognizes the roles of average speed, speed variance, and the level of enforcement. An unusual result emerges, namely that a higher speed limit may be optimal when reducing the variance in highway speeds reduces accident externalities.

Can One Unscramble An Omlet? China's Economic Reform In Theory And Practice, Yuan-Li Wu, Richard Y.C. Yin

Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

Robert H. Bates And Anne O. Kruger (Eds.). Political And Economic Interactions In Economic Policy Reform (Book Review), Sandra F. Joireman, Winston Wells

Political Science Faculty Publications

This volume is a welcome attempt to combine extremely disparate regional literature on structural adjustment programs. The empirical research for the book was conducted in such a way as to generate truly economic hypotheses and conclusions. Bates and Krueger commissioned eight teams of researchers; each composed of at least one political scientist and an economist. The teams' initial agenda was to unravel the puzzle of why good economics means bad politics in relation to these structural adjustment programs. To meet that end, the teams were asked to investigate three phases surrounding the adjustment programs: Informed by current theories of interest …

Labor Law Successorship: A Corporate Law Approach, Edward B. Rock, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rigging The Lobbying Process: An Application Of The All-Pay Auction, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In a world where a politician can explicitly auction off a prize to the high bidder, the standard auction literature can be used to analyse political behavior. The justice system, however, precludes politicians from explicitly selling the prize to the highest bidder. Thus politicians cannot let it become public knowledge that they are in the business of selling political favors. An institution has emerged in political markets to overcome this constraint which are termed as lobbying. Lobbyists make implicit payments to the politician through campaign contributions. If these up-front payments were rebated to those failing to receive the prize, it …

Jean Ensminger. Making A Market: The Institutional Transformation Of An African Society (Book Review), Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

The publication of Making a Market marks yet another excellent contribution to the field from the Cambridge Series on Political Economy. Similar to the other volumes in the series, it emphasizes the interaction of political structures and institutions with economic change. Yet whereas most of the previous volumes in the series have been written by political scientists or economists, this book stands out as unique in that it is written from an anthropological perspective. Unusual as this is, the book gives an extremely sophisticated and readable application of the new institutional economics to the developing world.

Of Diagnoses And Discrimination: Discriminatory Nontreatment Of Infants With Hiv Infection, Mary Crossley

Articles

Evidence of physician attitudes favoring the withholding of needed medical treatment from infants infected with HIV compels a reassessment of the applicability and adequacy of existing law in dealing with selective nontreatment. Although we can hope to have learned some lessons from the Baby Doe controversy of the mid-1980s, whether the legislation emerging from that controversy, the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, has ever adequately dealt with the problem of nontreatment remains far from clear. Today, the medical and social characteristics of most infants infected with HIV introduce new variables into our assessment of that legislation. At stake are the …

Industrial Structure, Campaign Contributions And Policy Outcomes. Dissertation, Andrew Ewoh

Andrew I.E. Ewoh

The study examines whether businesses in concentrated and/or highly regulated industries are more likely to make large campaign contributions in the attempt to reduce tax rates and increase retained earnings. While a number of studies have explored business-government relations, direct empirical explorations of the problem reported conflicting results. The diversity of results coupled with various explanations about the extent of business influence on public policy calls not only for further research, but also the use of alternative methodologies.

To this end, this study proposes a dual analytical framework based on contemporary theories of business power and political influence. The study …

Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

A model of the optimal speed limit is developed which explicitly recognizes the roles of average speed, speed variance, and the level of enforcement. An unusual result emerges, namely that a higher speed limit may be optimal when reducing the variance in highway speeds reduces accident externalities.