1,720,966 research outputs found
Trading Interests: Legislature Size, Constituency Size and Government Spending in a Panel of Countries
No full textIn this paper we study the relationship between legislature size and constituency size with respect to general government and welfare spending. According to the theory, legislature size has an indefinite effect on government spending because logrolling and transaction costs have canceling effects. In turn, smaller constituency size is predicted to decrease givernment spending because of homogeneity of interests and low monitoring costs. We use a panel of 23 OECD countries over the period 1975-1996 controlling for some institutional features that differ among these countries. We find that legislature size outperforms constituency size in explaining government spending. Consequences for lobbies' behavior are drawn
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
THE DETERMINANTS OF MARKET REGULATION AND SOCIAL PROTECTION PREFERENCES
No full textThis paper argues that when considering the political viability of deregulation policies, it is crucial to take into
account the political sustainability of fiscal measures to compensate the losers of reforms or to accommodate any
temporary negative effect on aggregate demand. This implies that the political determinants of market regulation
(MR) and social expenditure (SE) have to be jointly analysed. Empirically, a first macro-level clue of
substitutability between such policies emerges by investigating the relationship between MR and SE acrosscountries.
This suggests that countries choose different institutions for social protection, i.e. combinations of MR
and SE. As a preliminary step to analyse this choice in a political economy framework, we analyze the
determinants of individuals' demand for social protection. To this goal we present a simple model in which it is
explicitly recognized that income and the degree of exposure to labour market risks are key determinants of
preferences over alternative forms of protection. Using microdata from the International Social Survey
Programme (ISSP), we test whether and how the main structural relationships identified in the model empirically
emerge when controlling for some of the other important determinants of preferences for protection which have
been highlighted in the literature. On the same dataset, we also study the existence and the determinants of the
importance individual voters attach to different issues (issue salience). Our results show that the intensity of
individual preferences, and thus the salient policy issue, is significantly influenced by the position in the income
distribution and by the degree of vulnerability to labour market risks. Nevertheless, these results present crosscountry
peculiarities and systematic differences according to the country legal origins
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Bribery and Public Debt Repudiation
No full textIn cases where policy makers accept "bribes" offered by organised lobbies or interested parties, government decisions can be modelled as a first price menu auction. In this paper we adapt this structure to model debt repudiation. We consider a one-period model in which two generations, parents and children, are present, and debt titles are unevenly distributed among parents. The government can repay the debt by a combination of taxes on the children's income and on the outstanding debt. We exclude intergenerational conflicts, assuming that the parents' and children's objective is to maximise the utility of the family. In this perspective, families make offers that relate monetary contributions to the tax structures chosen by the government. On the hypothesis that all interests are represented, we obtain the result that the government is indifferent to the tax structure
The political Power of the Owners of Public Debt
No full textWe develop a two period model to investigate what makes the promise to repay public debt credible. We explor a political solution excluding any role for long-run reputational arguments. There are two sources of heterogeneity among individuals: wealth and income. Differences in asset holdings determine individuals preferences over monetary policy; differences in incomes determine individuals preferences over fiscal policy. The bi-dimensionality of the political choice plays a fundamental role. We show, in fact, that political outcomes on the dimension perceived as less relevant might be decided by minority groups. In this sense, the very fact of issuing public debt creates a constituency in favour of repaying it and, under certain conditions, this constituency might be winning even though it is a minority [email protected]
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