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This paper analyses grading competition between instructors of elective courses when students shop for high course scores, the instructors maximize class size, and the school imposes a ceiling on mean course scores to limit grade inflation. We demonstrate that curriculum flexibility (more listed courses or fewer required courses) intensifies the competition: in particular, top scores increase. To tame incentives to provide large scores, we suppose that the school additionally introduces a top‐score grading policy. We consider three regimes. First, the school caps top scores. Then grading competition segregates students into a concentrated group of achievers and a dispersed group of laggards. This effect extends to constraints on scores at lower quantiles. Second, the school normalizes the range of scores by adjusting the mean‐score ceiling. On normalization, scores of a less flexible curriculum first‐order stochastically dominate scores of a more flexible curriculum. Hence all students prefer rigid curricula. Third, the school requires that the mean score is evaluated for enrolled students instead of a representative sample of students. Then the instructors stop competing for students, which introduces assortative inefficiencies. Overall, we show that addressing grade inflation through grading policies may generate inequalities, rigidities and inefficiencies.

We verify the predictions of the theoretical literature on the relationship between political competition and economic performance, holding that, when the predominance of an ideological dimension creates a political rent, the party exploiting it selects lower quality politicians whose policy choices worsen economic performance. We examine the sample of 15 Italian Regions from 1980 to 2002 that exploits the institutional reforms of 1995 as an exogenous shock to pre-existing rents. We find evidence that higher political competition improves economic performance, through the choice of more efficiency-oriented policies. Adapted from the source document.

The introduction of choice in public services has become a major issue in the British public debate since the early 2000s. This article exposes the arguments & ideas exchanged, & then examines the various processes of the dissemination of those discussions outside the field of public policy. This approach underlines the "scientific activism" of some multipositioned researchers. It highlights the politicization of the choice in a context of rivalries around the legitimate definition of "progressivism." These ideas are supposed to make the emergence of a "personalized welfare state" complete. The challenge is also to show what the analysis of these ideas reveals of the beliefs & social representations of the entrepreneurs of choice. Adapted from the source document.

Updated and revised from Strategic Review, Fall, 1974.

政策の費用対効果を考えるための新たな枠組みの提案 --生産、消費、労働など多分野への応用に期待--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-07-27. ; To tax or not to tax, is that even a question?: Resolving issues related to tax efficiency assessments. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-07-28. ; This paper provides a comprehensive framework to study welfare effects of multiple policy interventions and other external changes under imperfect competition with emphasis on specific and ad valorem taxation as a leading case. Specifically, in relation to tax pass-through, we provide "sufficient statistics" formulas for two welfare measures under a fairly general class of demand, production cost, and market competition. The measures are (i) marginal value of public funds (i.e., the marginal change in consumer and producer surplus relative to an increase in the net cost to the government), and (ii) incidence (i.e., the ratio of a marginal change in consumer surplus to a marginal change in producer surplus). We begin with the case of symmetric firms facing both unit and ad valorem taxes to derive a simple and empirically relevant set of formulas. Then, we provide a substantial generalization of these results to encompass firm heterogeneity by using the idea of tax revenue that is specified as a general function parameterized by a vector of policy instruments including government and non-government interventions and costs other than taxation.

Governments frequently develop policies that are strategic in nature. Strategic issues at the national level are those requiring long timeframes for impact, coordinated approaches across multiple tiers of government, are cross-sectoral, and require systemic approaches to design and implementation. Yet the process of how national strategic polices are developed and implemented in Australia is unclear, and largely unattended in the literature. This paper provides a foundation to understanding the characteristics of strategic polices and approaches to their development. Five national policies are compared (National Competition Policy, National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, the Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure, Australia in the Asian Century, and the National Food Plan) and discussed. An analytical framework is constructed and key attributes of strategic policy identified.

The volume deals with competition among regional and external players for the redistribution of power and international status in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on Russia's renewed role and the implications for US interests. Over the last few years, a crisis of legitimacy has beset the liberal international order.
In this context, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, as in the extreme case of the current collapse in the Middle East. The idea of a "Russian resurgence" in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination. This volume, a joint publication by ISPI and the Atlantic Council, gathers analysis on Washington's and Moscow's policy choices in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers' engagament in the countries beset by major crises.

The volume deals with competition among regional and external players for the redistribution of power and international status in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on Russia's renewed role and the implications for US interests. Over the last few years, a crisis of legitimacy has beset the liberal international order. In this context, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, as in the extreme case of the current collapse in the Middle East. The idea of a "Russian resurgence" in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination. This volume, a joint publication by ISPI and the Atlantic Council, gathers analysis on Washington's and Moscow's policy choices in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers' engagament in the countries beset by major crises.

Advocates of market-based education reform hypothesize that competition will cause traditional public schools to increase outreach efforts as they seek to market themselves. Advocates hope such efforts will result in more information on school activities & performance & thereby enhance accountability. We examine the effect of charter school competition on outreach efforts by a sample of 98 AZ district schools, finding that charter competition is associated with a short-term increase in outreach. Organizational structure influenced school response, with more decentralized district schools responding more readily to charter competition. Competition modestly increased information regarding schooling in the short run, although long-term implications are less clear. 3 Tables, 66 References. Adapted from the source document.