Government Organization and Power

We develop a theoretical framework to examine how government organization affects its power and size. The framework abstracts from distortions that arise from the means of government finance and separates government power into two dimensions—pure coercive power and pure pricing power. A government can exert its coercive power to shift the demand for its services outward and grow too large. It can simultaneously exert its pricing power to restrict output along a given demand curve to earn rents. Consequently, neither size nor rents alone are reliable indicators of the extent to which government provision of services is nonoptimal.     

Mobilization of Personal Social Networks and Institutional Resources of Private Entrepreneurs in China*

Les auteurs examinent les liens micro et macroscopiques dans l'étude de l'économie en transition, en analysant la façon dont les entrepreneurs mobilisent leurs réseaux sociaux personnels intégrés à diverses institutions, afin de protéger leurs ressources d'affaires. Les résultats démontrent que les membres du réseau travaillant dans les organismes du gouvernement ou du parti jouent, en gros, un rôle essentiel dans l'obtention des ressources importantes comme les contacts gouvernementaux et l'information sur le marché et le financement. Ils démontrent aussi que les entrepreneurs utilisent différents membres de leurs réseaux pour différents types de ressources. Les auteurs discutent les différentes conséquences que cela entraine pour l'étude des réseaux et de l'économie en transition. This paper addresses the micro and macro link in studying transitional economy by examining how entrepreneurs mobilize their personal social networks embedded in various institutions to secure business resources. The results show that, by and large, network members working in government/party agencies play an essential role in obtaining important resources, such as those for government contact and market information/funding. The results also show that entrepreneurs utilize different members of their networks for different types of resources. Implications to the study of networks and transitional economy are discussed.     

Opening the government’s black boxes: freedom of information and algorithmic accountability

Freedom of information laws are intended to illuminate how governments operate. However, the operations of governments increasingly involve algorithms, such as those used to recommend criminal sentencing and determine eligibility for social services. Algorithms function as ‘black boxes’ that turn inputs into outputs using processes that are often, by design, not transparent. Freedom of information laws allow one potential means for algorithmic transparency. However, whether such laws can be used to access algorithms is unclear. This research examines, in two ways, the availability of government algorithms to the public. First, this study examines laws, regulations, advisory opinions, and court rulings relevant to the disclosure of algorithms. The second part of this study analyzes actual responses by US government agencies to Freedom of Information Act requests for algorithms. This study concludes that governmental policies and practices related to algorithmic disclosure are inconsistent. Such inconsistencies suggest a need for better mechanisms to hold government algorithms accountable.     

TAXES AND EXPENDITURES IN THE U.S.: PUBLIC OPINION SURVEYS AND INCIDENCE ANALYSIS COMPARED

The usefulness of surveys for eliciting fiscal opinions of voters is investigated. Using data from the U.S. Advisory Commission in Intergovernmental Relations annual surveys of attitude toward government and taxes, the survey responses are related to economic and political factors and the survey results compared to those predicted by incidence analysis. The results from this analysis and a review of previous studies of this type suggest that there is often no consistent economic foundation for answers to fiscal survey questions. It also appears that some standard survey questions are too general to produce precise estimates of the factors influencing responses.     

An empirical analysis of South Korea's economic development and public expenditures growth

Economists and political scientists have long maintained that there exists a one-way relationship between the size of government and economic growth. That is, it is hypothesized that economic growth is the cause of government expenditure growth and not the other way around. New research, based on the Keynesian paradigm, suggests that the causality runs from growth in government spending to growth in GDP. Concern with causality has spawned a growing body of new research by Landau (1983 and 1986), Kormendi and McGuire (1985), Singh and Sahni (1984), Marsden (1984), Conte and Darrat (1988), and Ram (1986). While some of these studies support the Keynesian paradigm, others find contrary evidence.In this study, we use Korean data to conduct causality tests of Wagner's law. Further, we develop a model consisting of a government growth equation and a GDP growth equation. Again, using Korean data, we estimate these equations and compare the results with those of Wagnerian causality tests. We conclude that the Korean government expenditures have not contributed to economic growth.     

Attitudes and Bureaucrats: Assessing the Representativeness of Local Officials in New Hampshire1

Abstract Since the late 1950s and 1960s, New Hampshire has experienced unprecedented growth. During the past two decades, this growth has begun to be felt in the state's North Country, particularly among its many small communities. As a result of developmental pressures in this region, numerous local problems related to the environment and socioeconomic conditions surfaced. The responsibility for meeting the challenges of such growth and development often fell on amateur bureaucrats. Relatively little is known about how representative such officials are of their local citizenry in terms of attitudes and opinions or sociodemograph-ics. This paper presents the results of a study comparing demographic characteristics and assesses the congruence of attitudes of citizens and local government officials in the North Country of New Hampshire.     

Before the Emergence of Critical Citizens: Economic Development and Political Trust in China

Political trust has been declining among the publics of almost all advanced industrial societies in recent years. This has been attributed to a Materialist–Postmaterialist value shift, which has given rise to a public that is less deferential to authority and increasingly ready to challenge government. This phenomenon has been interpreted as a ‘crisis of democracy’. Although one might expect to find low level of political trust in repressive authoritarian societies, survey data indicates that political trust in China is actually very high. Does this simply mean that people are afraid to express any opinions that might be viewed as critical of authority? As this article will demonstrate, this does not seem to be the case. The Chinese public expresses fairly strong criticism of some aspects of Chinese society – but they express high levels of confidence in the national government. Although rich democracies provide both a higher standard of living and more personal freedom than is available to the average Chinese citizen, the Chinese public expresses higher levels of confidence in government than those found in most advanced industrial societies. We conclude that economic development has the immediate effect of enhancing public support for the government – but in the long run it also leads to value changes that promote critical citizens. At least for now, the regime-enhancing effect of economic development still dominates the regime-eroding effect. The effect of changing values on distrust of government is largely overwhelmed by the support for government brought by the increased level of affluence.     

Child abuse and the bureaucratisation of social work

Child abuse became a public issue in the early 1970s. The alleged failure of social workers and welfare agencies to prevent children being killed by their parents and caretakers led to changes in the practice and organisation in child abuse work. The way public inquiries and government departments framed the problem of child abuse produced solutions which were essentially legalistic and bureaucratic. No longer was the aim to rehabilitate poorly functioning families, but to protect children from dangerous parents. But in order to achieve this aim, it was first necessary to identify the factors that would allow child protection agencies to recognise which families were dangerous and which were not. Once these factors were identified, it was possible to develop administrative systems that would facilitate the collection and analysis of information obtained during the investigation of suspected families. These systems allowed welfare agencies to identify ‘high risk’ cases. During the translation of the problem of child abuse into a set of judicial and bureaucratic procedures, therapeutically orientated professional practices found themselves out-manoeuvered. The translation witnessed the production of social workers as ‘passive agents’, a new cognitive perspective on the problem of child abuse, and a contribution to the bureaucratisation of child care practice.     

Diversification of Korean housebuilding firms: The pattern and motives between 1980 and 1995

The Korean housebuilding industry made rapid growth during the 1980s and 1990s and the industry has been restructured. One of its outstanding characteristics has been the diversification of housebuilding firms. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of government regulations on the restructuring of the Korean housebuilding industry. The extent and pattern of diversification were examined via an analysis of the period 1980–1995, and the motives for diversification were investigated using interviews and empirical modelling. The results show that Korean housebuilding firms were diversified into both related and unrelated businesses during the rapid growth period. The conclusion is that building firms tended to diversify into other businesses in order to use resources more efficiently. In particular they extended their activities into counter-cyclical businesses in order to compensate for business loss due to tight government regulation. The diversification is seen as a survival strategy under a regulated environment as well as a long-term growth strategy.     

经济适用房保障对象家庭收入考核范围界定研究

经济适用房在我国住房保障体系中占有重要的地位。然而,经济适用房在保障对象家庭收入考核方面存在着考核标准过低和缺乏考核范围的问题。经济适用房保障对象不应仅仅涉及低收入家庭,而应当定位于中低收入家庭;基于按揭贷款视角的家庭收入范围界定比较科学和可操作性强,可根据居民家庭收入的不同分为6种贷款方式,解决"夹心层"住房难的问题;要加强审查经济适用房申请者家庭收入的考核,并制订严格的监督措施以及违规惩罚措施。     

Opposition to Pro‐Immigrant Public Policy: Symbolic Racism and Group Threat

This study examines the relationship between symbolic racism and native‐born citizens’ policy opinions toward legal and undocumented immigration. With data from the 1994 General Social Survey and the NPR/Kaiser Foundation/Kennedy School of Government 2004 Immigration Survey, the results from logit regression models indicate that symbolic racism significantly predicts opposition to legal immigration, immigrant access to federal aid, and standard costs for college, citizenship for U.S.‐born children, and work permits for undocumented immigrants. The effects are independent of group threat and other factors. Symbolic racism explained more variation in policy opinions toward government assistance, while group threat explained more variation toward immigration levels and citizenship status. Depending on the issue, native‐born citizens likely derive their immigration policy opinions from moral ideologies in addition to intergroup competition.     

Democracy as Textual Accomplishment*

By analysing a government commission's report, this essay demonstrates empirically the utility of ethnomethodology for ideological investigation and critique. In a liberal democratic society, publicly appointed investigative commissions must claim a non-interventionist stance toward opinions submitted to the commissions. This claim in turn furnishes the commissioners' display of having followed the due democratic processes in their objective reporting of the investigated situations. The ethnomethodologically informed analysis demonstrates that (i) commissioners cannot be non-interventionist and (ii) they necessarily discredit some segment of the public opinions by formulating these opinions as less than adequate in some ways, of which the formulation of “non-representativeness” is most readily available. Because of space limitations, this essay is only a precursor to the detailed analysis of “discrediting” practices in ideological production and reproduction.     

Parents' Attitudes, Knowledge, and Behavior Toward Youth Gambling: A Five-Year Follow-up

This study compares the attitudes, knowledge, and behavior of parents of 5- to 17-year-old children regarding youth gambling. This information was obtained through two telephone surveys conducted in 1995, and 5 years later in 2000, in the Québec City area. Survey 1, in 1995, was conducted on 279 respondents, while survey 2, in 2000, was carried out with 213 respondents. Results showed a number of changes in parents' attitudes, behavior, and knowledge concerning youth gambling: For example, parents' perception of the age of onset of gambling behavior had improved slightly at the end of the 5-year period. Furthermore, parents were more satisfied with government limitation of access to gambling, and more accurately informed about legal aspects of the sale of lottery tickets. However, the percentage of parents who failed to associate youth gambling with some of its correlates (arcade attendance, parental gambling problems, and friendship with gamblers) increased from 1995 to year 2000. The improvements that were observed suggested that parents had benefited from media-transmitted information during this period. However, the deterioration of some parental attitudes, and the stability of other variables, suggest that it is still important to educate parents about youth gambling, and to design interventions adapted to parents' needs.     

Is It the Government’s Responsibility to Reduce Income Inequality? An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Public Opinion toward Redistributive Policy in the United States, 1978 to 2016

This study examines age, period, and cohort (APC) effects on changing opinions among the American public toward the federal government’s responsibility for income redistribution. More specifically, we use the hierarchical age–period–cohort (HAPC) model to analyze time periods and birth cohorts as contextual variables and age as an individual-level variable to address the identification problem inherent in APC analysis. Our results show that while cohort effects on public opinion toward redistributive policy exist, such effects are explained by individual-level compositional differences among cohorts, and while period effects are evident, particular trends in that regard are difficult to discern. What our results make abundantly clear, however, is the significant impact of age on opinions toward redistributive policy. As people age, they become significantly less supportive of federal redistribution policies, a relationship that is robust in the presence of cohort and period effects as well as a full range of controls. In the context of a rapidly aging population, the implication is that more conservative policy preferences linked to older age provide little reason to believe that mass support for government redistribution is in the offing.     

Union dues and wage premiums

This study explores whether union wage premiums reflect compensating differences or noncompetitive rents. It is argued that if (1) there exists substantial dues variability, and (2) there is a positive wage-dues relation among union workers, at least part of the observed union premium is noncompetitive. Empirically, these two conditions are substantiated both within and across industries using the PSID microdata base. On average, 44 percent of the overall union premium is attributable to noncompetitive sources. Senior Economist, Office of Research and Evaluation, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Special Assistant for Policy, Evaluation and Research, U.S. Department of Labor. Comments are gratefully acknowledged from James Cunningham, H. Gregg Lewis, Wesley Mellow, William J. Moore, Jack E. Triplett and an anonymous referee. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily reflect the official position or policy of the U.S. Department of Labor.     

The political economy of the rent-seeking society: The case of public employees and their unions

Evidence is accumulating which suggests that public employee pay levels may contain substantial rent components. The purpose of this study is twofold: to relate the theories of public choice and competitive rent seeking to this evidence and to improve upon existing estimates of rent levels by incorporating the effects of fringe benefits and stability of employment. This study concludes that once nonwage forms of compensation are included, economic rents are contained in pay levels at all three levels of government for both sexes. The authors wish to acknowledge their immense debt to Sharon Smith, who provided us with much of the data used in this study. The assistance of Betsy Rankin is also gratefully acknowledged. The authors alone, however, are responsible for the contents of this article.     

The economics of organized crime and optimal law enforcement

This article extends the optimal law enforcement literature to organized crime. I model the criminal organization as a vertical structure where the principal extracts some rents from the agents through extortion. As long as extortion is a costless transfer from individuals to the criminal organization, not only the existence of extortion is social welfare improving because it makes engaging in a criminal offense less attractive but it also allows the government to reduce expenditures on law enforcement. When extortion is costly because the criminal organization resorts to threats and violence, the existence of extortion is social welfare diminishing and may lead to higher expenditures on law enforcement.     

Xenophobia online: unmasking Singaporean attitudes towards ‘foreign talent’ migrants

In recent years, Singaporeans have become highly anxious about the future of their country and their own personal livelihood due to the influx of educated and professional migrants known as ‘foreign talent’ and express their ire at the presence of these migrants through xenophobic posts online. This article suggests that such comments, however, are indicative of the feelings of disillusionment and abandonment Singaporeans have towards the People's Action Party – the only government Singaporeans have ever known. While Singaporeans have been critical of their government on economic issues that impact their lifestyle and existence, it is the presence of foreign talent migrants that have pushed Singaporeans into using the migrant situation to emotively express their opinions of disappointment in the government and its policies online like no other issue, functioning as the unlikely glue that has galvanised and united an ethnically disparate Singaporean population.     

Health Claims Regulations: Voices from Korean Consumers and Experts

Processed foods such as milk and cereal are allowed to use health claims limitedly. The purpose of this study was to document consumers and experts about their opinions on the permission of health claims on processed foods. We conducted a national survey of 1,000 adults and interviewed 16 experts. We found that consumers were generally favorable toward the permission of health claims on processed foods. Experts emphasized strict, scientific review by a government agency, effective consumer education, and cautious claims such as warnings and daily intake claims.     

The (unexpected) structure of “rents” on the French and British labour markets

This paper considers the allocation of labour on the French and British markets, using objective wage and subjective satisfaction data. We show that, in some sectors, workers enjoy both higher wages and higher job satisfaction. We argue that this reflects labour market wage rents. Perhaps surprisingly, wage rents are typical of the British public sector and permanent contracts, but not of their French counterparts. In France, such rents are found in full-time, rather than part-time jobs. Hence, the data provide little support for the usual a priori that the French labour market is structured along insider–outsider model lines, whereby wage rents are captured by the insiders of the public sector to the detriment of the private sector. However, they do suggest that part-time employment is involuntary to a far greater extent in France than in Great Britain.