EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEMS AND INVESTOR PREFERENCES

This paper investigates whether or not floating exchange rates add an undesirable level of risk to international investment positions. For investors holding currencies, we find that fixed exchange rates are preferred to floating exchange rates, which supports the often-argued case that floating exchange rates do excessively increase the riskiness of investment. However, in the more realistic case of investors holding foreign securities, we find that floating exchange rates are preferred to fixed exchange rates; that is, we find that floating exchange rates have not added an undesirable level of risk to international investment positions.     

Institutional completeness, ethnic organizational style and the role of the state: the Jewish, Italian and Greek communities of Montreal

Les sociologues canadiens ont eu tendance à concevoir un état institutionnel complet en terme d'institutions 'parallèles' qui inhibent ou servent d'alternatives à la participation dans les institutions de la société'en général'. Dans ce document, nous suggérons des prolongements à la notion d'un état institutionnel complet en examinant la relation entre les styles organisationnels développés par les communautés juive, italienne et grecque de Montréal et les politiques, lois et actions miees en oeuvre par le gouvernement québécois. À travers 1'étude des facteurs qui permettent ou inhibent le développement des écoles de jours ethniques de chaque communauté, nous décrivons les différentes formes d'état institutionnel complet dans ces différentes communautés. Notre recherche suggère également que les relations actuelles entre ces trois communautés et le gouvernement du Québec constituent un nouveau 'contrat social' dans lequel le gouvernement supporte la maintenance de la diversité ethnique en échange d'une mumission aux lois telles la francisation des fonctions et institutions communautaires.     

The Canadian state and corporate elites in the post-War period

Les théoriciens de l'instrumentalisme affirment qu'un grand nombre des preneurs de décisions de l'état sont issus des cadres supérieurs de grandes entreprises et que ceci explique du moins en partie les politiques gouvernementales favorisant le processus de l'accumulation. D'autre part, les structuralistes soutiennent que ces liens ne sont pas essentiels à une comprehension de l'état capitaliste dont l'évolution et la composition incarnent la domination du capital. Cette étude examine les liens entre les conseils d'administration de la grande entreprise et de l'état entre les années 1946 et 1977 en se penchant surtout sur les individus qui ont détenu des positions aux deux niveaux, soit des entreprises et de l'état à n'importe quel moment pendant cette periode, que ces positions aient été détenues concurremment ou non. Quoique des niveaux élevés de liens entre les entreprises et l'état ont été observés, ils ne sont pas assez élevés pour constater une domination de l'état par l'entreprise. Les liens les plus étroits avec des organismes sont avec les universités et les hôpitaux, suivis des compagnies de la couronne de Canada et des Commissions Royales, des compagnies de la couronne des provinces, du Sénat et des cabinets fédéraux et provinciaux. Les niveaux les plus bas de liens se retrouvent parmi les bureaucraties du fédéral et des provinces. Le niveau des liens a augmenté quelque peu pendant la période étudiée.     

LITTLE WHITE LIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE MODELS CORRELATED RESPONSE ERRORS IN A PANEL STUDY OF VOTING

One interpretation for the common survey finding that the backgroundcharacteristics of vote overreporters resemble those of actualvoters is that misreporters usually vote. This hypothesis—thatmisreporters regularly voted in earlier elections—is testedwith data from the 1972–74–76 Michigan ElectionPanel. It receives no support: the 1972 and 1974 validated turnoutof the 1976 misreporters was very low. Moreover, misreportingwas a fairly stable respondent characteristic: misreportingabout an election in one interview was correlated with misreportingabout the remaining elections in each of the other two interviews.A comparison of regressions predicting turnout using the validatedreports versus the self-reports shows that the respondent errorscan distort conclusions about the correlates of voting. Forexample, controlling for three other variables, education wasrelated to self-reported voting but not to validated voting.Here, as well as in surveys of other socially desirable or undesirableissues, respondent self-reports may bias survey data in favorof commonsense models of the world.     

POLLING ON THE ISSUES PUBLIC OPINION AND THE NUCLEAR FREEZE

Throughout the first term of the Reagan administration, thenuclear freeze movement headlined the news and scored numerouspolitical victories. Hundreds of state and local governments,as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, passed resolutionsin support of the freeze. Public opinion polls played a majorrole in the debate, as the media and freeze advocates citednumerous polls indicating overwhelming public support for theinitiative. Yet a comprehensive and detailed examination ofnational polls reveals that public support for the freeze cameheavily qualified. While Americans expressed strong supportfor the basic concept of a freeze, they expressed doubts aboutthe possibility of a verifiable and balanced freeze agreement.Furthermore, the public doubted that the Soviet Union genuinelydesired such an agreement. Most surprisingly, the public didnot pay much attention to the debate. Few Americans claimedto know or care much about the freeze initiative, and fewerstill felt positively toward the political activists behindthe freeze.     

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT APPROACHES TO SERVICE DELIVERY: AN ANALYSIS FROM A TRANSACTIONS COST PERSPECTIVE

Municipal governments are less likely to contract out for service delivery if citizen preferences for the service are heterogeneous. This conclusion is based on an analysis that extends to the public sector the empirical industrial organization literature on transaction costs and the "make or buy" decision faced by private firms. Service delivery practices for sixty-three municipal services are examined. The findings are consistent with the proposition that the cost for writing and monitoring contracts may be an important consideration in municipal service delivery approach and that bureaucratic supply may not be as inefficient as some previous studies indicate.     

RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS IN THE AGGREGATE

This paper investigates the relationship between the way rational expectations is employed in practice and the argument initially put forth to justify its use. In practice rational expectations has meant that the expectations of each agent taken separately is consistent with the predictions of the theory. This is different than the argument frequently used by proponents of rational expectations that on an aggregate level expectations should be consistent with the theory. The primary findings are that standard and aggregate rational expectations typically yield systematically different equilibria and that the size of the difference depends positively on the degree of synergism.