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There is an escalating debate over the value and validity of self-reported dietary intake as estimated by Food Frequency Questionnaires and other forms of memory-based dietary assessment methods. Proponents argue that despite limitations, memory-based methods provide valid and valuable information about consumed foods and beverages and therefore can be used to assess diet-disease relations. In fact, over the past 60 years, thousands of memory-based dietary research reports were used to inform public policy and establish the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Yet, despite this impressive history, our position is that memory-based dietary assessment methods are invalid and inadmissible for scientific research and therefore cannot be used in evidence-based policy making. Herein, we present the empirical evidence and theoretic and philosophic perspectives that render data derived from memory-based methods both fatally flawed and pseudoscientific. First, the use of memory-based methods is founded upon two inter-related logical fallacies: a category error and reification. Second, human memory and recall are not valid instruments for scientific data collection. Third, in standard epidemiologic contexts, the measurement errors associated with self-reported data are nonfalsifiable because there is no way to ascertain if the reported foods and beverages match the respondent's actual consumption. Fourth, the assignment of nutrient and energy values to self-reported intake (i.e., the pseudoquantification of anecdotal data) is impermissible and violates the foundational tenets of measurement theory. Fifth, the proxy estimates created via pseudoquantification are often physiologically implausible and have little relation to actual nutrient and energy consumption. Finally, investigators engendered a fictional discourse on the health effects of dietary sugar, salt, fat and cholesterol when they failed to cite contrary evidence or address decades of research demonstrating the fatal measurement, analytic, and inferential flaws of memory-based dietary assessment methods.

Health information technology (HIT) innovation focuses on electronic health records (EHRs) that can collect, store, and transmit health information within electronic health information exchanges. HIT innovation holds great promise not only for improving public health, but also for controlling what many believe is out-of-control healthcare spending in the United States. These benefits, along with the perception that providers were too slow in adopting HIT, motivated passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act in 2009. That act authorized government subsidies to encourage the adoption and use of EHRs. This paper examines whether recent government investments in EHR adoption were wise. Theories that market failure in EHR innovation and adoption is caused by network externalities, lack of information, and free-rider problems are found to be not entirely convincing, especially given that the government case for subsidies mistakenly assumed that interoperable mature technologies were mostly in place and that healthcare providers would voluntarily share data among themselves. Government subsidies have thus likely “locked in” immature technology rather than spurred HIT innovations that would otherwise have evolved over time. Lost opportunities for better patient care at lower expense are one major cost of the government subsidy program. The paper concludes with recommendations for government policies that are more likely to promote HIT innovation that will improve public health.

The US Department of Agriculture has issued dietary recommendations for more than a century, and during that period the health, longevity, and nutritional status of Americans improved markedly. Before the release of the first Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) in 1980, the recommendations were based on rigorous science and simply offered general information on choosing foods and beverages to prevent deficiencies and maintain health. Yet with each subsequent version, the DGA became increasingly complex, prescriptive, and nutrient-focused (as opposed to food-based) despite an ever-increasing uncertainty and lack of credibility in the supporting evidence. This review examines the historical record of the development of the DGA and demonstrates that current recommendations were based on biased, implausible anecdotal evidence and that rigorous contrary research and the diversity of expert opinions on diet–health relationships were ignored. It concludes with an examination of the unintended negative public health consequences of founding policy on uncertain science.

This article examines whether obesity prevalence is influenced by the market structure of retail food outlets. A few studies have examined the effects of ‘big box’ stores on prices, food choices and obesity, but the present study extends empirical examination to all types of stores to determine if there are significant differences in their effects on obesity prevalence. Four types of retail food outlets are examined: supermarkets, supercentres and warehouse club stores (i.e. ‘big box’ stores), convenience stores and specialty stores. Counties with more retail food stores experience lower prevalence of adult obesity, but this inverse relationship appears to stem from greater numbers of supermarkets and specialty food stores. Obesity prevalence is positively associated with market shares of ‘big box’ and convenience stores.

Little is known about why some states enact more laws addressing obesity than others. This study examines what factors influence the enactment of laws using a data set of the 90 laws enacted over 2001–2010 in 30 states. Odds of enacting laws are mostly unrelated to state variation in education, population density, income, political party structure and obesity prevalence. Factors that significantly influence number of laws include education, black and Hispanic percentages of population and age. Examination of categories of laws indicates cases where political party structure and obesity prevalence influence cumulative numbers of laws, but often in conflicting directions. The negative but weak (p = 0.054) effect of obesity prevalence on the cumulative number of all laws also suggests that state governments that enact most laws are those with relatively low obesity prevalence. This study indicates opportunities for future research to examine which laws addressing obesity are most effective among the diverse ...

This article explores a wide range of issues that proponents of setting minimum prices for alcohol must resolve before they can safely claim their proposals improve public health and decrease public health care costs. Problems range from inability to know ‘correct’ prices and why tacking on pricing regulations to markets already taxed makes sense, to various unintended adverse consequences such as generating higher demand for illegal drugs and alcohol. It also remains unclear why advocates would not prefer to raise taxes since this is the typical method that economists propose to correct markets in which harm spills over to innocent parties.

Although various studies have concluded that public sector unions raise wages and employment for members, very little research has examined whether public sector unionism influences the overall size of state and local government. The relationship is examined within a pooled data set on all states over selected years during 2003–2010. Wide variation in union membership trends across states provides a rich data set to examine. Empirical results indicate that 10 percentage point increases in public union membership raise several measures of government size within a range of 2.25–4.25%. A similar increase in union membership is estimated to raise annual real wages by $1603 for the average government worker, which amounts to a rise of 3.48%.

This article examines the effect of statewide smoking bans on Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) incidence. After controlling for endogeneity between smoking ban status and AMI incidence, an econometric model indicates that smoking bans exerted no significant effect over 2005–2009 in the 50 states. The evidence thus suggests that findings from previous studies that bans lowered AMI incidence from 6% to 47% were the result of possible sampling bias and/or from examining periods too short with which to fully evaluate the longer term effects from bans.

Public debate regarding the role of government in lowering obesity often focuses on the fact that rising obesity prevalence is evident in all states. This article focuses on the hypothesized link between obesity and fast food employment by examining data on all states over 2001–2009 and controlling for other factors that may influence obesity prevalence. Our examination indicates no support for the view that fast food is a significant causal factor behind the substantial weight gain exhibited by the US population.

Many countries are either introducing or proposing to introduce taxes on fat in foods as an attempt to curb growing rates of obesity. It is argued here that such taxes would be uneconomic, ineffective, discriminate racially, encourage rent-seeking behaviour and result in various adverse unintended consequences.

Good information is necessary for markets to allocate resources efficiently. Tobacco is a demerit good; smoking endangers smokers but also exerts externalities on non-smokers. Public policies, however, foster misinformation, are contradictory and damage public health. Current policies also deny feedback from the tobacco industry and reduce consumer information about tobacco products that could substantially reduce the harmful effects of smoking.

Although tobacco-control spending is considered an essential component of comprehensive programmes aimed at lowering smoking, substantial variation exists across states. This article examines if variation is systematically related to cross-state differences in smoking prevalence, holding other factors constant that are expected to influence spending. An econometric model is estimated which considers effects of tobacco-settlement revenues, income, unemployment, political party of the governor, state debt and smoking prevalence on tobacco-control spending in all states during 2000–2007. Estimations control for the possibility that spending and smoking prevalence are co-determined to clearly determine the causal link from prevalence to spending. Spending variation is determined to be inconsistent with a ‘rational needs’ strategy whereby states with higher prevalence choose more funding than states with lower prevalence. This empirical result is consistent with recent studies indicating that spending on tobac...

Effectiveness of tobacco control programmes in reducing smoking prevalence during 2001 to 2005 is examined. Tobacco control spending is found to exert no significant effects on smoking prevalence across the 50 states. Cigarette prices are found to lower prevalence of daily smokers, but exert no effect on nondaily smoking prevalence. Several reasons are suggested for why these results might conflict with previous research. These include that most previous studies examined two states (California and Massachusetts) with long-standing tobacco control programmes and that most studies examined periods in which many of the states in their samples did not actively fund their programmes. Another reason may be that, unlike most previous studies, this study controls for the possibility that tobacco control spending is endogenous when, for example, states exhibiting relatively low smoking prevalence are also states with relatively high distaste for smoking and accordingly fund tobacco control programmes more generous...

School choice reform refers to changes that allow parents greater freedom to choose schools for their children. School choice reform is contentious because it fundamentally alters the environment in which public and private schools operate and could result in significant changes for both demanders and suppliers of education. This article develops a model of public education with imperfect exit to predict how private school enrollment influences performance of public schools. Empirical evidence from data on all private and public schools in California provides substantial support for the hypothesis that public school test scores are inversely related to private school enrollments and charter school enrollments when private and charter schooling reflects exiting by parents unhappy with local public schools. Implications regarding how expanded private school choice might influence public school performance in California and elsewhere are discussed.

The United Kingdom has recently enacted smoking bans in public places such as restaurants and pubs. Public health advocates argue that bans are necessary because non-smokers need protection from second-hand smoke. Advocates also claim that bans do not exert harm on owners because of a vast empirical literature showing that restaurants and bars in the United States never suffer harm following bans. This paper examines whether these claims are true by developing a model within the Coasian framework whereby owners of businesses have incentives to deal with smoking disputes between smokers and non-smokers. Our model demonstrates that it is incorrect to argue that smoking bans are necessary because the private market has no method of attempting to solve smoking problems. It also predicts that bans exert different effects on different businesses: some will be unaffected while others will experience losses or gains. Our literature review reveals that predictions of differential effects are consistent with the empirical evidence.

While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe that most state governments under-fund tobacco-control programs, little is known about why large variation in spending exists between state governments. This study explores reasons for spending variation through an econometric model of per capita spending on tobacco-control programs that explores the effects of smoking prevalence while holding constant tobacco settlement funds, state budget deficits, and other factors that might also be expected to influence spending variation. Empirical evidence indicates no support for the hypothesis that states with high smoking prevalence spend more on tobacco-control than other states. This finding may be quite surprising to those working in areas of public health and clearly leads to many important policy questions regarding why the data indicate that funding does not appear to bear any relation to perceived public health problems as would be predicted if policymakers were following a ‘rational needs’ approach...

Many public-health researchers are quick to raise charges of bias to explain away the few studies that reach politically incorrect conclusions. Claims of bias are often thrown at researchers who are funded by the industries targeted for aggressive intervention. This paper discusses whether it makes sense that bias is a relevant issue only when researchers have connections to private industry or find fault with government intervention. I focus on the issue of whether smoking bans harm any restaurant or bar owners. This area of research has experienced a large number of claims of bias and deception, leveled against research that does not enthusiastically support expanded intervention. This paper diagnoses the groupthink and deep biases of the structures and cultures within which pro-ban research comes into being. It also shows how intimidation is used to silence dissent and enforce taboos. It shows why it is important that we address the question: Who else would fund research that might come to politically incorrect conclusions on such issues?

This chapter examines the effectiveness of nudges designed to steer us toward better food and beverage consumption behaviors as a means of lowering population weight. It first discusses our state of knowledge on obesity causes and prevention. Next, it presents the basics of nudge theory followed by criticisms of that theory. It then discusses various imperfections that all choice architects—whether in governments or markets—must face, which suggest that nudges are a blunt instrument for reducing population weight. Finally, the paper discusses how nudging by governments differs from nudging by markets, and concludes that market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens lose weight.

California is often considered the model for tobacco-control programs due to its early adoption of comprehensive programs aimed at lowering tobacco consumption. Tobacco control began when voters approved the California Tobacco Tax and Health Promotion Act of 1988. More than $2 billion has been spent on tobacco-control in California since 1988. The findings of this article indicate that tobacco-control spending is a significant factor for the widening gap between consumption in the United States and in California only in equations that exclude cigarette prices and smoking bans as control variables. When significant, however, estimates suggest that, for every $1 increase in tobacco-control spending per capita, the sales gap widens by only 0.11 to 0.18 cigarette packs per capita, or roughly 2 to 4 cigarettes per capita. This study suggests that future research should address the complexity of interactions among tobacco-control programs, cigarette prices, and smoking bans.

This study finds an active private market in accommodation of smokers and nonsmokers in Wisconsin restaurants. Empirical analysis indicates that a large number of factors underlie owner decisions regarding how to allocate seating to non-smoking use. Owners not only base their decision on the number of smokers in their community, but also consider customer occupations, presence of children, and whether businesses are located in college towns, as well as type of restaurant and whether the establishment has a general liquor license. Business age, numbers of seats, and membership in a corporate chain also underlie decisions made in the private market for accommodation. Government smoking restrictions that are less than bans overturn all of the factors that owners previously found critical to their choices of accommodation policies, except for the number of smokers in their client base. These findings indicate that an active private market in accommodation is consistent with diversity of smoking policies.

Although laws restricting smoking in restaurants are becoming commonplace, most research has focused on either the health benefits that laws may provide customers and workers or whether laws harm owners. But while smoking laws may directly alter profits, owners may alter prices, output, and other business attributes in ways that affect the welfare of customers and workers. This study examines whether restaurant and bar owners alter prices, entertainment, hours of operation and other business attributes in response to local smoking laws. Substantial support is found for these attribute changes in the Wisconsin hospitality industry. One implication is that an overall assessment of the desirability of smoking laws should consider economic effects imposed on owners, customers and workers, as well as health benefits that follow laws.

Fears about insufficient public education spending are often expressed in the area of higher education, whereby it is often argued that increases in expenditures on crime-related programs crowd out expenditures on higher education. This view suggests that higher education and crime-related programs directly compete for government expenditures so that what one program gains the other must lose as in a zero-sum game. A competing hypothesis is that higher crime-related spending leads to higher taxes or public debt issuance or to lower spending on programs other than higher education. We estimate a three-equation model of spending on crime-related programs, spending on higher education, and the crime rate from which we directly test whether spending on crime-related programs and higher education influence each other. Our empirical analysis provides weak evidence that crime-related programs have crowded out spending on higher education.

This paper tests the hypothesis that monopoly power of school districts allows bureaucratic expansion and fosters poor academic performance in the public school system in California. Evidence indicates that monopoly power is positively associated with employment of administrators and teachers, and therefore supports the bureaucratic expansion hypothesis. While numbers of teachers do not influence performance measures, numbers of administrators are shown to positively affect performance - results that suggest that too many teachers, but too few administrators, are employed. While bureaucracy theory may explain the resource misallocation, other reasons might include rising public pressures on hiring teachers over administrators, spending equalization policies, and the weak California economy in the period under investigation.

This article examines the effect of restrictive smoking laws on restaurants, bars, and taverns. Supporters of these laws often argue that they do not harm firms and may even raise profits. Opponents argue that owners cater to customer smoking preferences, and laws mandating specific policies will negatively impact profits. This article provides a framework for examining the distribution of effects that smoking laws exert on businesses, and demonstrates that changes in total sales or tax revenues do not provide a meaningful understanding of the economic implications because smoking laws exert different effects on different firms. The distribution of these effects is examined using data from a nationwide survey of 1,300 restaurant, bar, and tavern owners. While some subsets of firms are predicted to suffer revenue declines, bars are predicted to be more than twice as likely to experience losses as restaurants. An important implication is that the increasing level of governmental restrictions on smoking in the hospitality sector could gradually impact the types of service available to the public.

This paper examines school structure, spending, and performance relationships in California and finds considerable support for the public exchange model that predicts that greater competition improves student performance. The evidence indicates that, despite claims to the contrary by many advocates of public education, higher education spending does not raise student achievement. Education spending is also shown to be highest in those counties exhibiting highest monopoly power as measured by the Herfindahl index. Strong support is also shown for the public exchange view that higher market power leads to lower student achievement in the fourth and eighth grades, but little support is shown for the tenth grade.

MICHAEL L. MARLOW [*] Supporters of smoking laws often argue that they do not harm restaurants, bars, and taverns and may even raise their profits. Opponents argue that owners cater to customer preferences regarding smoking and that laws mandating specific smoking policies will therefore negatively impact profits of some firms. This article tests hypotheses regarding how smoking laws affect seating allocations, using data from a nationwide survey of restaurant and bar owners. The empirical evidence indicates that smoking laws exert no significant effect on seating allocations. Firms are shown to allocate greater shares of seating to nonsmoking use when customers exhibit stronger preferences for such seating. (JEL K2, H0) I. INTRODUCTION Laws restricting smoking in restaurants have been enacted in 32 states. Supporters of these laws often argue that they do not harm firms and may even raise their profits. [1] Recent studies, for instance, argue that outright bans on smoking in eating and drinking places have not adversely affected these establishments, suggesting that smoking bans either do not reduce demand or lower costs for firms, which offsets sales losses, thus leading to no adverse changes in profits. Opponents of smoking restrictions argue that owners cater to customer preferences regarding smoking. Some owners would find it profitable to allow smoking throughout their establishments, others to forbid all smoking, and still others to accommodate both smokers and nonsmokers by investing in partitions, designating areas, creating smoking patios or rooms, and/or investing in air filtration systems. They argue that laws that mandate specific smoking policies will therefore negatively impact profits of some firms. Little economic research has been published on the effects of smoking laws on revenues of restaurants, bars, and taverns, and none has been directed toward the issue of smoking/nonsmoking seating allocations. [2] This article provides a framework for examining how customer preferences influence smoking and nonsmoking seating allocations by owners--the primary policy that firms unilaterally adopt in their attempts to deal with the issue. Hypotheses regarding how smoking laws affect seating allocations are then tested using data from a nationwide survey of 1,300 restaurant, bar, and tavern owners. The empirical evidence indicates that smoking laws exert no significant effect on seating allocations. II. ECONOMIC MODEL AND TESTABLE HYPOTHESES Without legal restrictions, policies adopted by restaurants, bars, and taverns toward smoking are determined in much the same manner as decisions regarding menus, prices, and hours of operation. Profit-maximizing firms optimize on the basis of customer demand and costs. Decisions pertaining to smoking policies simply allocate the air space within firms between smoking and nonsmoking customers. [3] The air space within an establishment is considered just like any other resource, and owners decide to cater solely to smokers, to nonsmokers, or to both by providing patrons with rights to smoke while accommodating others through smoking/nonsmoking areas and air filtration systems. The choice depends on customer preferences and relative marginal costs. [4] Predictably, market segmentation naturally evolves where firms cater more to smokers in markets dominated by smokers than in those markets dominated by nonsmokers. There may also be broad differences between how owners of restaurants and bars or taverns allocate seating. Customers of restaurants are likely to prefer that owners adopt different accommodation strategies than would patrons of bars and taverns. Restaurant customers tend to dine in one location within firms, and therefore it is possible for owners to designate sections for smokers and nonsmokers, and this predictably leads to a relatively high allocation of nonsmoking seating. In contrast, customers of bars and taverns may prefer to participate in various activities (dining, drinking, listening to music, dancing, and playing pool, darts, and billiards) whereby they move to different locations within the establishment during their visit and interact with different patrons. …

As state and local governments have devoted a rising share of their resources to crime-related programmes, concerns have arisen that spending on other programmes such as education will fall. Coupled with growing public concerns over performance of the public education system, and expectations that prison populations will rise as states pass and enforce more stringent sentencing laws, it is not surprising that some view the expansion of crime-related programmes as troublesome. One hypothesis is that education and crime-related programmes directly compete for government expenditures so that what one programme gains the other must lose as in a fixed-pie situation. A competing hypothesis is that spending on these two public programmes are unrelated and therefore higher crime-related spending may also lead to higher taxes or public debt issuance, or to reduction in spending on programmes other than education. We estimate a three equation model of spending on crime-related programmes, spending on education, and...

This paper develops a model of public exchange whereby voters and education policy makers exchange with one another within school districts. Because school district consolidation lowers alternatives to voters-parents, consolidation is hypothesized to raise public education spending because weakened intergovernmental competition allows policy makers to promote their own utility, rather than that of constituents. Models of public education spending and academic performance are estimated over 1988–1990. While evidence indicates little support for the traditional treatment of the Leviathan hypothesis that greater competition lowers public spending, this paper argues that education spending by itself does not fully provide a valid test of the Leviathan hypothesis since spending, by itself, does not necessarily indicate the quality of public education programmes. Empirical evidence indicates that greater numbers of schools and school districts promote higher student achievement as evidenced by higher math and v...

Our fiscal process divorces payment from use. Whilethis divorce has led many analysts of government to separatediscussion of public expenditures from their funding, or usefrom payment, we argue that this approach does not provide auseful framework for understanding our public choices. We arguethat it is the divorce of payment from use that underlies ourfiscal process and, rather than simply “dismiss out of hand”the study of our fiscal process, it should be an integral partof our study of government. Our framework for describing fiscalinstitutions indicates how our fiscal process invites rent-seekingbecause it allows beneficiaries of programs to avoid paymentfor those programs. We conclude by examining how various changesin the fiscal process may influence our public choices.

This study examines the influence of public sector unions on the expansion of the public sector. Based on public goods theory, our paper models how unions influence the supply of and demand for public sector activities. On the demand side, public sector unions are special interests which advocate public sector expansion to policy makers; on the supply side, they exert pressure to maintain and expand monopoly powers. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between public sector unionism and public spending.

Growth in special district governments is examined as a reason behind public sector expansion in the United States. A theoretical model is developed of the optimal mix of government suppliers which predicts how special district governments affect the overall provision of government policies. The hypothesis that expansion of special district governments leads to expansion of the public sector is expirically examined over two time periods.

This article discusses the economic theory and empirical evidence of using soda taxes to lower obesity. The authors conclude that these taxes are unlikely to significantly lower obesity and that they promote many unintended consequences that may adversely affect public health. Higher tax revenues stemming from soda taxes are also likely to be used to expand government programs other than those associated with controlling obesity.

Taxpayers may reveal their assessment of policy through exercise of available voice and exit options within the fiscal constitution. The voice option is utilized when taxpayers remain within political boundaries and attempt to communicate their assessments regarding the institutionalstatus quo to policymakers. Exercise of the exit option occurs when taxpayers signal discontent with thestatus quo by purchasing from another government supplier. This paper discusses and contrasts theconventional andconstitutional economics views toward fiscal design and argues that a major difference exists regarding the issue of who should be awarded primary responsibility in the policy process: taxpayers or policymakers? Because voice and exit options determine the relative leverage of taxpayers and policymakers in the policy process, it is argued that the design of voice and exit options in the fiscal constitution exerts a predictable influence on policy. The paper concludes that one's view toward the design of voice and exit options is affected by one's perception of the appropriate size of government. Competitive fiscal structures tend to be advocated by those who believe that government tends to overexpand and monopolistic structures tend to be advocated by those who believe that government tends to be too small.

This paper examines the relationship between government size and fiscal centralization with specific focus on the separate influences of centralism and fragmentation on the size of public sector in the United States. The empirical findings at the national level provide support to the hypothesis that fiscal decentralization leads to a smaller government. The findings at the state and local levels, however, show no empirical relationship between government size and the degree of centralization.

In questo scritto si discute il ruolo dei diritti di proprietà e del rent-seeking nella gestione degli elefanti come specie in via di estinzione. In particolare, gli Autori si soffermano sul dibattito politico che si è prodotto all’interno della comunità ambientalista, divisa fra: 1) preservazionisti, che si oppongono a tutti i tipi di caccia e commercio dei prodotti derivati dagli elefanti, e 2) conservatoristi commerciali, che sono invece favorevoli alia caccia e al commercio dell’avorio e del pellame, cioè ai diritti di proprietà sugli elefanti, da riconoscere alle sole popolazioni africane. Quest’ultimo approccio si è mostrato più proficuo, sia ai fini dello sviluppo delle popolazioni africane che della salvaguardia della specie in pericolo. Il commercio dei prodotti derivati dall’elefante è una cospicua fonte di ricchezza per le popolazioni africane. Il riconoscimento dei diritti di proprietà sugli elefanti a favore di queste popolazioni ha garantito la possibilità di preservare una fonte di ricchezza legale, ridurre i fenomeni di bracconaggio e di commercio illegale e, in ultima analisi, di proteggere la specie in pericolo. L’interesse economico a ottenere vantaggiosi proventi dalla vendita dei prodotti derivati dagli elefanti ha infatti incentivato le popolazioni africane all’adozione di misure atte a proteggere il branco e a favorire al tempo stesso il suo accrescimento. La proibizione del commercio dell’avorio e del pellame di elefante ha prodotto invece solo retorica e ha creato seri problemi di sottosviluppo oltre che ambientali: non potendo ottenere alcun beneficio in termini di reddito direttamente appropriabile, le popolazioni non hanno alcun interesse ad investire sulla protezione degli elefanti. Il caso dei paesi dell’Africa Orientale e Centrale à un esempio probante dei notevoli costi sociali, in termini di declino della popolazione degli elefanti, derivanti da questo tipo di approccio. Ciò di cui si ha bisogno à quindi un approccio che bilanci l’interesse ambientale a salvaguardare la specie in pericolo e quello economico a preservare una fonte di ricchezza per le popolazioni africane. I diritti di proprietà si configurano come un primo e piccolo tassello ai fini della realizzazione di questo obiettivo.

This paper studies the hypothesis that controls on on-budget government spending leads to greater off-budget activity. Existence of a substitution effect suggests that our ability to control and measure the size of government is more difficult than previously thought.

Two implications from this research are noted. First, from a researcher's viewpoint, our research suggests the importance of age, wealth, tax rates, and marital status as determinants of political contributions by top U.S. wealth-holders. Therefore, these factors should be included in aggregated models that attempt to analyze the relations between such variables as voting, campaign expenditures and the outcomes of elections. Second, from politicians' viewpoints, this research suggests that individual economic variables such as marginal tax rates and wealth are major determinants of individual decisions to contribute to politicians. Assuming that such contributions reflect “votes,” this research suggests the relative importance of focusing campaign promises on economic variables — a strategy that “low tax” politicians like Ronald Reagan and George Bush may keenly be aware of.

A budget constraint view of government shows that privatization need not alter spending when it is implemented without a rule forbidding re-use of the funding backing newly-privatized programs. Only when these funds are eliminated from the budget process (e.g., tax rebates or permanent deficit reduction) can these funds not back new programs or expand existing programs. This is an important caveat since privatization proposals do not contain such rules. With such rules, privatization can increase allocational efficiency and lead to smaller government size.

Public choice models of government behavior draw heavily from the economics literature of industrial organization. Following the argument that private monopoly in production leads to relatively high prices and profits, the public choice literature suggests that similar analysis of government structure may be useful in the modeling of public production. Brennan and Buchanan [3; 4] model government as "Leviathan"-a public entity which seeks to maximize its revenue. The Leviathan hypothesis is motivated by the desire to successfully understand government behavior as well as to recommend effective means of controlling its behavior. Among other suggestions, Brennan and Buchanan offer the private monopoly corollary that competition among different fiscal units is an effective means of controlling the aggregate size of Leviathan. The resulting decentralization hypothesis is: "total government intrusion into the economy should be smaller, ceteris paribus, the greater the extent to which taxes and expenditures are decentralized" [3, 15]. This paper tests the decentralization hypothesis by examining a data set which considers all units of government. By disaggregating Federal spending on a state-by-state basis, we construct a cross-section of state data on Federal, state and local government activity. All previous examinations of the decentralization hypothesis at the level of the state have excluded the activity of the Federal government. However, given that Federal government expenditures greatly exceed those of state and local governments, previous cross-sectional tests of the decentralization hypothesis may have employed grossly incomplete measures of governmental activity in each state. Our study provides two extensions to the debate. One, by testing the decentralization hypothesis at the level of state aggregation, we suggest that previous cross-sectional studies do not report strong evidence in support of the hypothesis because of their exclusion of the Federal sector. Two, our study suggests the importance of including all potential competitors in the government arena: state, local and Federal governments. Our study does not solve all issues concerning aggregation

Our paper seeks the strategy that allows the greatest ability to reduce public sector size within a political environment that does not want us to directly set limits on public sector size. Tax reduction, through its quid pro quo effect, offers high tangibility to taxpayers and may raise political power of groups that seek both tax reduction and greater opposition to lobbies that seek spending increases for their narrowly-defined interests. Moreover, as Manage and Marlow (1986) argues, since the political response to balanced budget rules is likely to raise taxes, this political bias of tax hikes suggests that balanced budget rules are offered as a means of changing the funding mix and not the actual budget constraint of government.

Numerous studies have attempted to model the possible factors contributing to universal growth in public sectors. This paper analyzes one device that appears capable of controlling some of that growth: fiscal decentralization. The results reported here also support the use of monopoly government assumptions in models of public policy

A model of enforcement is developed that determines the impacts of OSHA actions on regulated parties. This model analyzes the effect of decision procedures developed by OSHA to enforce the law and their effect on resource allocation within the firm. It is concluded that the impacts from both the initial inspection and reinspection programs on the resource allocations of firms have likely been insignificantly different from zero. If OSHA is to increase the allocation of injury control resources of firms through its enforcement program, it must increase the costs of noncompliance that it imposes on firms.

This paper suggests that the empirical measurement of market structure, particularly the reliance on concentration indexes as an indicator of noncompetitive market power, does not adequately reflect recent advances in theory. This paper integrates the literature of the interaction between market structure and firm behavior with dynamic measures of structure. Our estimation for the savings and loan industry suggests that continued application of traditional static measures in market structure-performance studies are apt to be misleading. We call for more investigation into measures of dynamic structure.