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How does the type of the primary system affect political outcomes? We address this issue by constructing a simple model that accounts for intra‐party as well as inter‐party political competition. Our model suggests that allowing non‐partisan voters to participate in the primaries (i.e. a semi‐open primary system) indeed improves the chances of a moderate candidate getting elected. However, this need not necessarily happen in the case of a completely open primary system. Under such a system there arise multiple equilibria, some of which may lead to a greater degree of extremism than the closed primary system. Thus, our model contributes to the current debate on the choice of primary systems from an analytical perspective and helps explain some of the empirical findings.

Abstract
We consider a game of petty corruption between entrepreneurs and multiple bureaucrats. The potential value of the entrepreneur's project is stochastic and private, and it can be realized only if the project is approved by all the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats simultaneously make take-it-or-leave-it demands of bribes in exchange for approving the project. The entrepreneur can either pay the required bribes or seek costly legal recourse against non-approval. The paper shows that there are multiple equilibria in the one-shot game as well as in the dynamic version of the game in which a sequence of entrepreneurs applies to the set of bureaucrats to seek project approvals. We then characterize a compelling class of equilibria, namely the bribe-income-maximizing-equilibrium, and show that total bribe exchanged under such equilibria is non-monotonic in the cost of legal recourse. Hence, a small/incremental reduction to the cost of appeal is either ineffective or can backfire, i.e. increase the amount of corruption.

Poverty alleviation has become the main priority program in most developing countries. This research empirically studies the correlation between public health spending, governance quality, and poverty alleviation in developing countries. The panel data were estimated via a random-effects (RE) model and robustness check using instrumental variables (IV) (two-stage least-squares [2SLS]) and first-difference generalized method of moments (GMM) because of the endogeneity problem. The results suggest that public health spending has a significant effect on reducing the poverty rate, and that countries with better governance tend to reduce poverty than countries with poor governance. Increasing public health spending by one percentage point may reduce poverty by 0.48 percentage points in countries with good governance supposing the governance quality influences public health spending. Conversely, in countries with poor governance, the poverty headcount ratio may decline by 1.375 percentage points when public health spending increases by one percentage point.

This article studies the role of subpoena power in enabling policymakers to make better-informed decisions. In particular, we take into account the effect of subpoena power on the information voluntarily supplied by interest groups as well as the information obtained by the policymaker via the subpoena process. To this end, we develop a model of informational lobbying in which interest groups seek access to the policymaker in order to provide him verifiable evidence about the desirability of implementing reforms they care about. The policymaker is access-constrained, that is, he lacks time/resources to scrutinize the evidence owned by all interest groups. The policymaker may also be agenda-constrained, that is, he may lack time/resources to reform all issues. We find that if a policymaker is agenda-constrained, then he is better off by having subpoena power. On the other hand, if a policymaker is not agenda-constrained, he can be worse off by having subpoena power. The key insight behind these findings is that subpoena power, while it increases the policymaker's ability to acquire information from interest groups, it also alters the amount of information they voluntarily provide via lobbying, and that the net effect differs depending on whether or not the policymaker is agenda-constrained.

We analyze the relative importance of party ideology and rents from office in the formation of coalitions in a parliamentary democracy. In equilibrium, the types of coalitions that are formed may be minimal winning, minority or surplus and they may be ideologically `disconnected'. The coalitions that form depend upon the relative importance of rents of office and seat shares of the parties. If rents are high, governments cannot be surplus. With low rents or the formateur close to the median, minority governments occur for a wider ideological dispersion. Further, there is a non-monotonic relationship between connectedness of coalitions and rents.

The last decade has seen the burgeoning of several hundred local community currency institutions in cities across the world. Although residents of these communities claim that local currency promotes local development, how it does so has hitherto been unexplored. We argue that the introduction of a municipal currency may serve as a signal of demand for local goods. Where demand uncertainty deters firms from investing in more productive technologies, such a signal improves the chances that technology choice will be optimal. The introduction of a local currency therefore always improves ex ante efficiency and may lead to ex post efficiency, with strictly higher levels of productivity and welfare.

We study a game theoretic model of a parliamentary democracy under proportional representation where `citizen candidates' form parties, voting occurs and governments are formed. We study the coalition governments that emerge as functions of the parties' seat shares, the size of the rents from holding office and their ideologies. We show that governments may be minimal winning, minority or surplus. Moreover, coalitions may be `disconnected'. We then look at how the coalition formation game affects the incentives for party formation. Our model explains the diverse electoral outcomes seen under proportional representation and integrates models of political entry with models of coalitional bargaining.

AbstractThe Australian Industry Capability (AIC) program presents an example of hybridity where national security interests are served through a complex partnership between the Department of Defence, global prime contractors, and small and medium‐sized Australian companies. Through a qualitative interview study of stakeholders in the defence industry by and triangulating findings from publicly available defence industry documents, this study aims to document the decoupling associated with the AIC program. We find that complexity and opacity, stemming from hybridity, create decoupling in the implementation of the AIC program. We also find that a lack of accountability and monitoring contributes to decoupling. We advance the literature on hybridity into the context of multi‐organisational arrangements in a unique industry and identify how decoupling can impede the achievement of policy objectives in the context of complex hybrid arrangements.Points for practitioners
The Australian Industry Capability (AIC) program represents a case of complex hybrid arrangement in public sector management involving the defence industry.
Hybridity of AIC arrangements creates challenges of complexity and opacity, creating conditions that give rise to decoupling. Lack of accountability and monitoring exacerbates these challenges.
Potential for coupling is identified with recommendations provided.