Suchergebnisse

This is a report on an examination of translated official documents from two inspections of the Oñate expedition conducted in 1596 and 1597 in New Spain—present day Mexico. Its principal objective is to describe the purpose, the nature, and the quality of verification practices used in the Spanish-Americas at that time. The findings include: (1) verification of contract compliance was an established practice in sixteenth century New Spain, (2) the two inspections differed substantially in the care and thoroughness of the work done, and (3) generally, the practices showed rapid adoption of Spanish methods in the frontiers of its empire.

Front Cover; The Export-Import Bank: An Economic Analysis; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Preface; Chapter 1. Eximbank: The Controversy, Its Mandate, and Its Programs; I. The Controversy; II. The Origin and Functions of the Eximbank; III. The Principal Features of the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945; IV. Eximbank Programs; V. Related Organizations; VI. International Agreements Pertaining to Export Credits; VII. Policy Issues Associated with the Eximbank; References; Chapter 2. A Review of the Bank's Activities: 1970-1981; I. Introduction; II. Eximbank Performance; III. PEFCO.

This paper presents a model in which people sort between two districts based on economic and ideological preferences. People are either ideologues who prefer redistribution over a public good or non-ideologues who prefer a public good that benefits everyone equally. Individuals differ in their productivity with the distribution of productivities the same for both ideologues and non-ideologues. Ideologues back their ideology by working harder when there is redistribution even when not recipients, and non-ideologues work harder when the public good is provided. The tax rate in each district is chosen by majority rule with the median voter theorem identifying the winner. In the focal equilibrium, high productivity ideologues and non-ideologues locate together in a low tax district, and low productivity non-ideologues and ideologues locate together in a high tax district to benefit from redistribution. Middle-income individuals separate with non-ideologues locating in the low tax district and ideologues locating in the high tax district. Ideology thus results in a polarization interval in the middle of the income distribution. If ideology leads to partisanship and a strong party government that chooses the tax rate based on the party median, partisanship widens the polarization interval.

Many if not most government policies, regulations, and laws continue in effect unless changed by the legislature, providing a natural dynamic to the political process. Lobbying is a ubiquitous component of that process and can affect both proposal making and voting. This paper characterizes Markov perfect equilibria of a dynamic legislative bargaining model with stable policies and durable coalitions despite lobbying. Interest groups aligned with challenges to the incumbent coalition have a greater willingness to pay than have the defending interest groups, but the defenders have a legislative incumbency advantage in needing to counter-lobby fewer legislators than the challengers lobby. If legislators are sufficiently patient, equilibria exist such that the defenders of the incumbent coalition are successful. More than a minimal majority may be lobbied by the challengers, and coalitions can be surplus. Lobbying can increase proposal power, resulting in a more unequal distribution within a coalition.

This paper provides a dynamic theory of a parliamentary government system with proportional-representation elections, policy-motivated parties and voters, and an endogenous status-quo policy. The theory identifies the representation of parties in parliament, the governments the parties form, the policies chosen by those governments, and the duration of the governments and their policies. Governments are majoritarian, government parties are equal partners, they and their policies are durable, voters elect minority parliaments in every period, and government policies provide concessions to centrist voters. If crises can occur, governments can fall, but a new government forms after the next election. The theory provides explanations for three empirical findings: equilibria consistent with Gamson's law, an analog of Duverger's law for proportional-representation electoral systems, and compensational voting where voters give the out party additional votes when an incumbent government is expected to continue in office.

Self-regulation is the private provision of public goods and private redistribution. This paper examines the scope of self-regulation motivated by altruistic moral preferences that are reciprocal and stronger the closer are citizens in a socioeconomic distance. The focus is on the role of organizations in increasing self-regulation by mitigating free-rider problems. Social label and certification organizations can expand the scope of self-regulation but not beyond that with unconditional altruism. Enforcement organizations expand the scope of self-regulation farther, and for-profit enforcement is more aggressive than non-profit enforcement. Enforcement through social pressure imposed by NGOs also expands the scope of self-regulation. (JEL D64, H41, L51)

eBay provides an online auction venue for remote and anonymous members of its online community to realize gains from trade. As a venue it never sees the items sold, verifies the item listings, handles settlements, or represents the buyer or seller. Despite the associated market imperfections and incentive problems, over five million auctions are active on an average day. Trading is based on trust among members of the eBay community, and trust is supported by a multilateral reputation mechanism based on member feedback. eBay supplements the reputation mechanism with rules and policies that mitigate incentive problems, reduce transactions costs, and support trust among members and between members and the company. Reputations and the rules and policies provide a private ordering of eBay's community. This paper examines this private ordering in the context of the company's strategy and in the shadow of the public order.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that U.S. lobbying expenditures substantially exceed interest group campaign contributions, without including the lobbying that is not required to be reported to the government. Although it has grown in Europe, particularly with respect to the European Union, lobbying is less important than in the United States. Bennedsen and Feldmann (BF) provide an important and insightful explanation for the difference in terms of the institutional structure of governments. They present a model of informational lobbying in client politics where an interest group provides information to a majority-rule (three-member) legislature. The legislature chooses the scale of a program whose benefits can be distributed among legislative districts. The legislative agenda setter has a vote buying problem and allocates benefits to one other legislator to obtain her vote. BF compare legislatures operating with and without a confidence procedure that allows the agenda setter to tie passage of its proposal the continuation of the government. This commentary considers the method for comparing these two institutions, assesses the implications of the theory, and considers future research related to the theory.

This paper provides a model of integrated market and nonmarket strategies in the context of an industry facing regulation that differentially affects the firms in the industry. The regulation is chosen in a majority rule institution, and to affect the stringency of the regulation, the firms in the industry can take nonmarket action in the form of providing support to legislators based on how they vote. The nonmarket action is considered in the context of client and interest group politics, where the latter involves competition with an environmental interest group. An integrated strategy is composed of the firm's strategy for its market environment and its strategy for its nonmarket environment. Also the integrated strategies of the firms must constitute an equilibrium in their market competition and an equilibrium for their nonmarket competition, including that with the environmental interest group. Collective action in the form of coalition building and rent chain mobilization is also considered.