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AbstractA model based upon the common concept of rent‐seeking behavior avoids an exclusive focus on the pecuniary motive in private institutions and the power motive in public institutions. Using this model, the case for privatization ranges from very strong to unpersuasive, with some fascinating intermediate cases. Where purchases are frequent, information is abundant, costs of a bad decision are small, externalities are minimal, and competition is the norm, privatization ought to be pursued. At the other extreme, in situations where externalities and collective interests abound, natural monopolies are dominant, distributional goals are important, or debate and experience will alter preferences, governmental determination of service levels and public provision should continue. Intermediate situations such as those involving education, health, and some aspects of enterprise development provide the most interesting and hotly debated areas. These intermediate situations have both private and collective characteristics, choices are made infrequently with little information, have monumental consequences, distributional considerations are critical, and public debate about the level and type of service substantially affects individual behavior.

Why do institutions emerge, operate, evolve and persist? Institutional Choice and Global Commerce elaborates a theory of boundedly rational institutional choice that explains when states USE available institutions, SELECT among alternative forums, CHANGE existing rules, or CREATE new arrangements (USCC). The authors reveal the striking staying power of the institutional status quo and test their innovative theory against evidence on institutional choice in global commerce from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Cases range from the establishment in 1876 of the first truly international system of commercial dispute resolution, the Mixed Courts of Egypt, to the founding and operation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization, and the International Accounting Standards Board. Analysts of institutional choice henceforth must take seriously not only the distinct demands of specific cooperation dilemmas, but also the wide array of available institutional choices

This paper proposes to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the independence of Timor-Leste by focusing on two controversies that marked the period before its proclamation and whose consequences extend into the present. The first one deals with the "road map to Independence" and comprises the debate on the best process to elaborate a Constitution. It is intertwined with the problem of the extent to which Timorese ought to participate in the critical decisions of the transitional period, conducted under the aegis of the United Nations. The second impinges on the choice of its system of government and its impact on the consolidation of democracy. This section discusses the relevant literature on semi- presidentialism to frame a comparative perspective to events in Timor-Leste and shows the historical evolution of the process of constitutional design and the debates it involved. Finally, this essay proposes to look at those critical choices as a function of the history of Timor-Leste since 1975 and the political balance of forces rather than derived from theoretical principles.

Scholars of institutional change in Congress offer competing theoretical accounts of the accrual of procedural rights by House majority parties. One camp posits that the interests and capacities of political parties drive procedural change that affects agenda control. An alternative perspective offers a nonpartisan, median‐voter account. I explore these two accounts, survey challenges involved in testing them, and determine the fit of the accounts to the history of procedural change in the House. I find that no single perspective accounts best for the pattern of rule changes affecting agenda control and that the median‐voter model may be time‐bound to the twentieth century—after partisan majorities had constructed the core partisan procedural regime of the House.

This paper presents an experimental study on the ability of human groups to escape the tragedy of the commons through institutional change. It shows that the groups identify institutional change as a means of resolving social dilemmas and are ready to apply it even if the change requires an unanimous vote. At the same time, the groups who were given the right to change the rules performed poorer on average than the control-groups. This result stands in contradiction to elementary economic reasoning as well as the results of previous experimental studies.

Although the delegation of government functions to non-majoritarian bodies such as independent agencies has accelerated throughout the OECD, Germany has followed a different path so far. In particular, administration agencies have only rarely been granted autonomy from direct political control. The main argument is that a genetic code, inherent to the system of government institutions, has routinely auto-piloted choices that involved the design & control of agencies away from principal-agent-like considerations. The elements of this genetic code are outlined & the likelihood of their future persistence is assessed. Even if the pressure to create new agencies at arms length from government has increased, there are still strong incentives to keep them in a subordinate position. Adapted from the source document.

"Although the delegation of government functions to non-majoritarian bodies such as independent agencies has accelerated throughout the OECD, Germany has followed a different path so far. In particular, administrative agencies have only rarely been granted autonomy from direct political control. The main argument is that a genetic code, inherent to the system of government institutions, has routinely auto-piloted choices that involved the design and control of agencies away from principal-agent-like considerations. The elements of this genetic code are outlined and the likelihood of their future persistence is assessed. Even if the pressure to create new agencies at arms length from government has increased, there are still strong incentives to keep them in a subordinate position." (author's abstract)

Although the delegation of government functions to non-majoritarian bodies such as independent agencies has accelerated throughout the OECD, Germany has followed a different path so far. In particular, administrative agencies have only rarely been granted autonomy from direct political control. The main argument is that a genetic code, inherent to the system of government institutions, has routinely auto-piloted choices that involved the design and control of agencies away from principal-agent-like considerations. The elements of this genetic code are outlined and the likelihood of their future persistence is assessed. Even if the pressure to create new agencies at arms length from government has increased, there are still strong incentives to keep them in a subordinate position. (West European Politics / FUB)