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National statistical systems are enterprises tasked with collecting, validating, and reporting societal attributes. These data serve many purposes--they allow governments to improve services, economic actors to traverse markets, and academics to assess social theories. National statistical systems vary in quality, especially in developing countries. This study examines determinants of national statistical capacity in developing countries, focusing on the impact of technological attainment. Just as technological progress helps to explain differences in economic growth, we argue that states with greater technological attainment have greater capacity for gathering and processing quality data. Analysis using panel methods shows a strong, statistically significant positive linear relationship between technological attainment and national statistical capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern states increasingly rely on two means of regulating markets: public regulation (by the government) and private self-regulation (by the firms themselves). This study assesses the evolution of the state toward co-regulation by examining, across countries, the incidence of a prominent type of self-regulation: the environmental protection standard ISO 14001. It focuses on technological capabilities as a precursor to the widespread adoption of ISO 14001. Just as technological progress helps to explain differences in economic growth, markets with greater technological attainment (specifically, general purpose technologies) arguably have greater firm-level adoption of self-regulation practices. According to panel data, ISO 14001 is more widespread in countries with greater technological capabilities, but there are diminishing returns to the impact of technology. As such, limited technological attainment remains a key factor that constrains economic growth and limits not only the capacity of the market to regulate itself but so, too, the evolution of the state toward a system of co-regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the informational role of interest groups interact with institutions when politicians seek to control the bureaucracy? In 1992, Banks and Weingast argued that bureaucrats hold an informational advantage vis-à-vis political principals concerning policyrelevant variables, and that when it is prohibitively costly to audit, the agency may over- or understate the extent of a public problem. This is less likely to happen if there is a low-cost monitoring technology and if interest groups can monitor the agency's choices. I test this hypothesis using data on bureaucratic statements that estimate the importance of a number of hazardous waste problems from a group of state-level environmental agencies. The results provide evidence for the Banks-Weingast hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]