Suchergebnisse

Public programs for agriculture challenge social scientists. How do public aids to agriculture affect the economic freedom of farmers? Can losses of economic freedom be balanced by gains in political self-determination through farmers sharing in the adoption and management of public programs for agriculture? Is governmental power conveyed to farm organizations whose leaders (however "broad-gauged" and public-spirited") lack institutional responsibility to the public? Notwithstanding mutual interdependence of various aspects of the "farm problem," is there a tendency toward splintering public policy among separate agencies in different commodity fields and among conservation, educational, regulatory, research, and credit agencies? Can the content of public policy be divorced for research from the process of policy formation and execution? Can federalism survive the vigorous development of regulatory programs administered from Washington? Contrarily, does federalism introduce factors which tend to defeat administrative responsibility in federal agencies? Is it possible for publicly-supported research freely to probe controversial issues raised by public policy?Such questions are increased in pertinence by current circumstances. Major re-directions of farm programs seem in prospect. The Committee on Agriculture in the House of Representatives is holding the first comprehensive hearings on agricultural policy since 1937. Meanwhile, Congress has authorized an expanded research program for agriculture which in itself may embody a marked shift in policy.Consider the implications for social science of the Hope-Flannagan Act (P.L. 733, 79th Congress). While including important traditional elements, the measure reflects the judgment that the country was thrown into ill-conceived regulatory programs in the 1930's and the assumption that redoubled research into the entire production and distribution process will discover ways to construct public policy which would be at once less arbitrary and more effective than New Deal measures. The challenge to the natural and social sciences concerned with argriculture is clear and profound.

The establishment of autonomous public bodies during the past two decades has created a highly fragmented public sector. Using a dataset with more than 200 Dutch public sector organisations, this article examines three related sets of questions: to what extent a relationship exists between formal and de facto autonomy; the level of influence that interested parties exert upon those

Der Autor analysiert die Ursachen für den Popularitätsverlust des tschechoslowakischen Präsidenten Vaclav Havel ab dem Herbst 1991. Er geht dabei näher auf die Vorschläge Havels zur Erweiterung der verfassungsmäßigen Kompetenzen des tschechoslowakischen Präsidenten sowie auf seine Lösungsversuche hinsichtlich des Nationalitätenkonflikts in der CSFR ein und untersucht Havels politische Zukunftsperspektiven. (BIOst-Srt)

When policymakers and private agents use models, the economists who design the model have an incentive to alter it in order infuence outcomes in a fashion consistent with their own preferences. I discuss some consequences of the existence of such ideological bias. In particular, I analyze the role of measurement infrastructures such as national statisticall institutes, the extent to which intellectual competition between di¤erent schools of thought may lead to polarization of views over some parameters and at the same time to consensus over other parameters, and .nally how the attempt to preserve in.uence can lead to degenerative research programs.

When policymakers and private agents use models, the economists who design the model have an incentive to alter it in order infuence outcomes in a fashion consistent with their own preferences. I discuss some consequences of the existence of such ideological bias. In particular, I analyze the role of measurement infrastructures such as national statisticall institutes, the extent to which intellectual competition between di¤erent schools of thought may lead to polarization of views over some parameters and at the same time to consensus over other parameters, and .nally how the attempt to preserve in.uence can lead to degenerative research programs.

When policymakers and private agents use models, the economists who design the model have an incentive to alter it in order infuence outcomes in a fashion consistent with their own preferences. I discuss some consequences of the existence of such ideological bias. In particular, I analyze the role of measurement infrastructures such as national statisticall institutes, the extent to which intellectual competition between di¤erent schools of thought may lead to polarization of views over some parameters and at the same time to consensus over other parameters, and .nally how the attempt to preserve in.uence can lead to degenerative research programs.