Sweet-Talking the Fourth Branch: The Influence of Interest Group Comments on Federal Agency Rulemaking

Students of politics have identified a variety of actors whoappear to influence the federal bureaucracy's implementationof public policy, including Congress, the president, and interestgroups. These lines of research, however, have often portrayedinterest groups as actors with indirect influence (who, forexample, work through or with Congress), rather than assessingthe direct influence of interest groups on bureaucratic policyoutputs. I conduct a test of direct interest group influenceby analyzing an original data set composed of 1,444 interestgroup comments in reaction to forty federal agency rules. Ifind, contrary to the expectations of the extant literature,that the formal participation of interest groups during rulemakingcan, and often does, alter the content of policy within the"fourth branch" of government. I conclude that those who voicetheir preferences during the notice and comment period rulemakingare often able to change government policy outputs to bettermatch their preferences.     

TAXATION, GOVERNMENT SPENDING, AND LABOR SUPPLY A DIAGRAMMATIC EXPOSITION

The effects of a change in the level of taxation on labor supply are examined under the assumption that the government budget balances. The government spends tax revenues either on redistributions (which are assumed to have an income effect on labor supply) or on other government goods (which are assumed not to influence labor supply). In order for a rise in the tax rate to increase the quantity of labor supplied, it must be that (i) the labor-supply function bends backward, and (ii) sufficiently little of the increased tax revenues are redistributed. The quantity of labor supplied must fall if all marginal tax revenues are redistributed.     

Individual determinants of social behavior

By using unique data from the section on social behavior of the Bank of Italy's 2004 Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), the paper studies the individual determinants of several aspects of social behavior: attitudes to cooperating with anonymous others; interest in politics; participation in groups and associations; and propensity to rely on favoritism both in finding a job and in dealing with government red tape. Our findings suggest that these different aspects of social behavior are only weakly correlated to each other and are explained by different individual determinants. We find that older and more educated individuals display a greater willingness to cooperate, a stronger interest in politics, and more intense association activity. By contrast, the likelihood of relying on favoritism does not depend on age and education. We also find that home-ownership is associated with good social conduct, while urban residence has mostly a negative impact on public behavior. Finally, having left-wing political opinions increases the interest in politics, while it does not affect the other aspects of social behavior.     

Political geography and interest-group power

The relationship between the distribution of an interest group's members (i.e., voters) across legislative districts and the group's ability to influence government policy is not well understood. We propose a simple model of interest groups and legislative decisionmaking to characterize this relationship formally, and analyze the model for the case of three competing interest groups. We find that an interest group's expected power is maximized when its members are evently divided across (m+1)/2 of the m districts, except when the group is somewhat small, in which case its expected power is maximized when it is evenly divided across all m districts. Expected power decreases sharply as a group's members become concentrated in fewer than (m+1)/2 districts.The author would like to thank the participants of the Workshop in Applications of Economics at the University of chicago fpr their helpful comments, and the Center for the Study of the Economy and the State for its financial support.     

Does transformational leadership predict group emotional intelligence in work settings? / ¿Es el liderazgo transformacional un predictor de la inteligencia emocional grupal en los contextos laborales?

Contagion of emotions is a widely accepted characteristic of transformational leaders. However, the impact they may have on the Emotional Intelligence of their subordinates is an open question. In this paper, we analyse whether Transformational Leadership (LTF) perceptions influence the Emotional Intelligence of their groups (GEI). This is a novel approach within the actual interest on emotional intelligence and its role in group results. The participants were 272 subordinates from 52 groups that belonged to different private and public organizations in Spain. They completed a questionnaire including the variables of interest. Our study helps to clarify the relations between TFL perceptions and GEI, showing that TFL and GEI relate at the group level and that TFL is one of the predictors of the perception of GEI in work settings. Thus, the development of emotionally competent transformational leaders will produce emotionally competent groups that might increase their performance, efficiency and other processes (i.e., engagement).     

WOMEN PREFER LARGER GOVERNMENTS: GROWTH,STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION,AND GOVERNMENT SIZE

The increase in income per capita is accompanied, in virtually all countries, by two changes in economic structure: the increase in the share of government spending in gross domestic product (GDP), and the increase in female labor force participation. We argue that these two changes are causally related. We develop a growth model based on Galor and Weil (1996) where female participation in market activities, fertility, and government size, in addition to consumption and saving, is endogenously determined. Rising incomes lead to a rise in female labor force participation as the opportunity cost of staying at home and caring for the children increases. In our model, higher government spending decreases the cost of performing household chores, including, but not limited to, child rearing and child care, as in Rosen (1996) . We also use a wide cross‐section of data for developed and developing countries and show that higher market participation by women is positively and robustly associated with government size. We then investigate the causal link between participation and government size using a novel unique data set that allows the use of the relative price of productive home appliances as an instrumental variable. We find strong evidence of a causal link between female market participation and government size. This effect is robust to the country sample, time period, and a set of controls in the spirit of Rodrik (1998) . (JEL O4, E62, H11)     

A RESPECIFIED TAX-ADJUSTED FISHER RELATION

How much will a 1% increase in expected inflation increase nominal interest rates? Irving Fisher's famous equation implies that nominal interest rates will rise in proportion to an increase in expected inflation. Darby and Feldstein, correcting the Fisher equation for taxation, predict a nominal interest rate increase of [1/(1 - T)]% where T is the marginal tax rate: i.e., if T =3, then a 1 % increase in expected inflation should cause a 1.4 % rise in interest rates. Empirical evidence, however, suggests that the rise in interest rates is much smaller than the Darby/Feldstein prediction. Estimates are around 9, varying mostly between 5 and 1.15, which is much closer to Fisher's original prediction. It is important to know the size of the interest rate response to inflation expectations in a world in which inflation and interest rates are volatile and in which tax laws are designed to influence savings and investment through interest rates. In this paper we attempt to close the gap between theorized and estimated effects of inflation by incorporating into the Fisher equation two important aspects of the U.S. tax code: historic cost depreciation and the lower tax rate on capital gains. Our model shows that the effect of expected inflation on interest rates is dampened by the lower benefits from depreciation deductions arid the capital gains tax. Our corrected Fisher equation predicts a 1.12 % nominal interest rate increase, rather than the 1.4 % increase implied by the Darby/Feldstein model. The, our model closes about 56 % of the gap between theory and empirical evidence. The remainder could be closed by additional refinements in the model or better empirical modeling.     

Perceptions of suicide and their impact on policy,discourse and welfare

In recent years, there has been an increase in suicide rates throughout the Western world. However, psycho-social responses to the problem are limited, as is public awareness of suicide and its consequences. This article presents findings from a survey on public attitudes toward suicide in Israel. The survey was conducted among a representative sample, and examined the extent to which the problem is a public priority for developing interventions aimed at preventing and reducing the rates of suicide. The findings revealed that despite the prevalence of suicide in Israel, and even though many of the participants had been personally acquainted with the families of suicide victims, suicide still ranks low on the hierarchy of bereavement. The Israeli public is ignorant about suicide, and does not consider it a problem that calls for government intervention and accountability. The study highlights the need for social workers to play an active role as social agents in an attempt to change the social ‘bereavement pyramid’ perception and effect on government policy toward suicide.     

Media and agenda setting: effects on the public, interest group leaders, policy makers, and policy

Using an experimental design built around a single media event, the authors explored the impact of the media upon the general public, policy makers, interest group leaders, and public policy. The results suggested that the media influenced views about issue importance among the general public and government policy makers. The study suggests, however, that it was not this change in public opinion which led to subsequent policy changes. Instead, policy change resulted from collaboration between journalists and government staff members.     

Public relations and lobbying: New legislation in Slovenia

This article reviews lobbying in the political sciences and public relations literature, and it also provides a conceptualization for the regulatory practices of lobbying around the world. Then, it presents the newest law on lobbying instituted in 2010 in the Republic of Slovenia, the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act. This Act treats lobbying in two ways: (1) as a communication technique used by interest groups to privately influence government officials and (2) as a process of access to information by the same interest groups. This inconsistency follows the same trend for lobbying regulation in Europe and raises important questions regarding lobbying practice and regulation. Lobbying is fundamentally a public relations practice exercised in private and public sectors, and it uses direct and indirect communication between interest groups and their respective government.     

Are the Effects of Monetary Policy Asymmetric?

By building on the Hamilton (1989) Markov switching model, we examine questions like: Does monetary policy have the same effect in expansions and recessions? Given that the economy is currently in a recession, does a fall in interest rates increase the probability of an expansion? Does monetary policy have an incremental effect on the growth rate within a given state, or does it only affect the economy if it is sufficiently strong to induce a state change (e.g., from recession to expansion)? As suggested by models with sticky prices or finance constraints, interest rate changes have larger effects during recessions.     

Changing Social Work Students’ Perceptions of the Role of Government in a Policy Class

Understanding student political attitudes—feelings about government and perceptions of its role—has long been of interest to social scientists. One factor that may influence political attitudes is belief in a just world, a complex psychological construct well established in the literature. Our study explores changes in social work students’ perception of a supportive role of government and their beliefs in a just world after one policy course using a pretest and posttest design. Student perceptions changed toward a more supportive government role, but there was no significant change for belief in a just world. The study contributes to empirical evaluation of the social work education policy class in terms of the Council on Social Work Education competencies.     

ARE GOVERNMENT BONDS NET WEALTH? EVIDENCE FOR THE UNITED STATES

This paper investigates whether government bonds are viewed as net wealth. If they are, the nominal interest rate in steady-state equilibrium should be an increasing function of the government debt and of government spending. Using forward interest rates realized during World War II, this paper finds no evidence of such a relationship. These data afford an especially powerful test because the federal debt rose from 29 to 106 percent of trend output during the war. This enormous increase in government debt actually appears to have reduced forward interest rates by a statistically significant, but small, amount.     

Procedural Control of the Bureaucracy, Peer Review, and Epistemic Drift

Regulatory peer review—in which independent scientistscomment on the technical underpinnings of proposed regulations—isa recently pursued form of political control of the bureaucracy.This article situates regulatory peer review in the contextof both the history of technical advice to government and theprincipal-agent perspective often used to explain the presenceof administrative procedures. Much of the academic discussionof attempts to influence bureaucratic decision making has utilizedprincipal-agent theory. We introduce two novel concepts to accommodateregulatory peer review into the principal-agent framework. Thefirst is "technocracy" where the preferences of technical expertsdisplace public preferences. The second is "epistemic drift,"a change in embodied knowledge that contributes to departuresfrom the policy intentions of an enacting coalition of policymakers. In addition to introducing these concepts, we arguethat regulatory peer review is more complex than other administrativeprocedures and that its efficacy critically depends on the detailsof its implementation. We hypothesize that regulatory peer reviewwill cause nongovernmental participants in regulatory conflictsto devote more effort to creating research and other epistemicresources. But we also hypothesize that, just as courts havebecome more politicized with their role in regulatory policy,peer review and regulatory science will become increasinglypoliticized as well.     

GOVERNMENT DEBT, CAPITAL ACCUMULATION, AND THE TERMS OF TRADE IN A MODEL OF INTERDEPENDENT ECONOMIES

This paper extends Diamond's overlapping generations model into a two-good, two-country setting to analyze the impact of an increase in domestic government debt on the terms of trade, the current account, and capital accumulation at home and abroad. It is found that, while the direction of change in the terms of trade is indeterminate in the short run, for stability it must agree with that in the steady state, which in turn is dependent on the initial debt status in trade of the home country. The higher level of government debt leads unambigously to lower levels of capital stocks, however.     

Doing Gender,Practising Politics: Workplace Cultures in Local and Devolved Government

This paper takes a workplace perspective to explore the ways in which institutional arrangements influence the doing of gender and the practising of politics. It compares the workplace culture of the National Assembly for Wales (NAfW) with that of local government in Wales, showing that the culture of the NAfW is experienced as less masculinized than local government and that women, and men, are less constrained to perform an aggressive, confrontational masculinity. This suggests that, in new political institutions, practising politics may be less closely tied to a particular way of doing gender and as a result may challenge the gendering of politics. Theoretically the paper engages with debates about doing, redoing and undoing gender, arguing that in order to understand how change can be brought about, attention needs to be paid to the structural context within which gender is done as well as the interactional level of doing gender.     

FISCAL POLICY, EXPECTATION TRAPS, AND CHILD LABOR

This paper develops a dynamic model with overlapping generations where there are two possible equilibria: one without child labor, and one with it. It is shown that intergenerational transfers can eliminate the child labor equilibrium and that this intervention is Pareto improving. However, if society does not believe that the government will implement the transfer program, it won't, reinforcing society's expectations. This is true even if the transfer program would have been implemented in the absence of uncertainty. Thus a government may be powerless to prevent the child labor equilibrium if it does not command the confidence of their populace, leaving the country in an expectations trap. ( JEL D91, E60, J20, O20)     

The contribution of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understanding and promoting the interests of young people making the transition from care to adulthood

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) acknowledges that young people without parental care are entitled to special support and assistance from the State. In detailing their expectations, the UN Committee have issued Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children which recognise that State parties have a number of responsibilities towards care leavers. The paper explores how the UNCRC reporting process, and guidelines from the Committee outlining how States should promote the rights of young people making the transition from care to adulthood, can be used as an instrument to track global patterns of change in policy and practice. Content analysis of State Party Reports and Concluding Observations from 15 countries reveals that to date there has been limited engagement with understanding and promoting the needs of this group in the reporting process; although where a government is committed to developing legislation and practice then this does find its way into their national reports. Data supplied by affiliates of the International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care (INTRAC) reveals that national concerns, political ideology, public awareness, attitudes and knowledge of the vulnerability of care leavers influence service responses to protect and promote the rights of this group and the attention afforded to such issues in reports to the Committee. Findings also suggest that global governance is not simply a matter of top down influence. Future work on both promoting and monitoring of the impact of the UNCRC needs to recognise that what is in play is the management of a complex global/national dynamic with all its uneven development, levels of influence and with a range of institutional actors involved.     

MARKET STRUCTURE AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE: NEW DATA ON POLITICAL EXPENDITURES, ACTIVITY, AND SUCCESS

This paper utilizes new data to evaluate the determinants of the political influence of thirty-five manufacturing industries on the U.S. Congress during 1976–80. Several measures of influence serve to distinguish between political activity and success. Seller concentration and geopolitical dispersion increase both activity and success, but neither industry size nor leading-firm size proves significant. We test whether political expenditures facilitate obtaining the favors conferred on an industry by its market structure or by influence independent of that strurture; statistical inference strongly confirms both roles.     

Trends in Development Aid,Negotiation Processes and NGO Policy Change

Non-governmental organizations (NGO) and government donor agencies (GDA) are often caught in a dilemma; an NGO between responsiveness to its target group(s), expectations of individual donors and demands of its GDA; GDA between its policy to respect NGO’s integrity, its wish to keep NGOs accountable for received fund and its operation within the bounds of its general policies. This dilemma is mirrored in the NGO–GDA negotiation for funds. Based on negotiation theory and using three explanatory approaches, 18 years of negotiations between an NGO, Vi Skogen (ViS) and its GDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), are analyzed in order to demonstrate how organizational structures, power relations and the context influence the outcome of the negotiations. All three approaches help to explain how ViS managed, mainly in the interest of its individual donors, to resist changes demanded by Sida and also to explain how the agendas of ViS and Sida finally converged.