state lottery adoptions as policy innovations an event history analysis two types of explanations of state government innovation have been proposed internal determinants models which posit that the factors causing a state government to innovate are political economic and social characteristics of a state and regional diffusion models which point toward the role of policy adoptions by neighboring states in prompting a state to adopt we show that the two are conceptually compatible relying on mohr s theory of organizational innovation then we develop and test a unified explanation of state lottery adoptions reflecting both internal and regional influences the empirical results provide a great degree of support for mohr s theory for the empirical analysis we rely on event history analysis a form of pooled cross sectional time series analysis which we believe may be useful in a wide variety of subfields of political science event history analysis may be able to explain important forms of political behavior by individuals organizations or governments even if they occur only rarely

cigarette taxes and the master settlement agreement i introduction in 1998 46 states and the four major tobacco companies entered into the master settlement agreement msa which settled litigation brought on behalf of the states to recover medical expenses paid by government insurance agencies for illness brought on by consumption of tobacco products national association of attorneys general 2003 the four remaining states florida minnesota mississippi and texas settled separately with the companies the msa stipulated that the tobacco companies pay the states an estimated 206 billion over the next several years the payments are made annually and are adjusted for the number of cigarettes sold in each state in each year in this sense the msa payment structure resembles an excise tax the strategy of using litigation as an instrument for discouraging consumption of a commodity deemed to be harmful to consumers is becoming more common parmet and daynard 2000 the impact that such litigation has on other tobacco control policies such as excise taxes depends on the extent to which litigation and such policies are substitutable the msa payments could substitute for excise taxes at the state level this may be so to the extent that state legislatures have succeeded in levying socially optimal excise tax rates 1 if so states would be expected to have reduced excise taxes on cigarettes after the settlements were reached similarly one would expect that various tobacco control policies such as workplace smoking bans would be substitutes albeit imperfect ones for state cigarette excise taxes and for penalties resulting from litigation that function as excise taxes alternatively litigation and the resulting settlement may have changed the balance of power between tobacco control advocates and the tobacco manufacturers with the consequence that the settlements and state excise taxes are complements the tobacco industry s influence on federal and state legislatures historically has been an impediment to enacting tobacco control legislation at either federal or state levels kelder and daynard 1997 parmet and daynard 2000 rather than crowd out state excise taxes the msa could have led to crowding in a cursory glance at the data supports the view that litigation changes the balance of power since the msa and four individual state settlements were reached the former in november 1998 and the individual settlements somewhat earlier state legislatures have increasingly looked to state excise taxes on cigarettes as a source of revenue relative to both excise taxes imposed on alcohol and state taxes more generally figure 1 in particular the largest jumps in the mean real state excise tax on cigarettes occurred in 1997 and 2002 in fiscal year 2003 for example state excise tax increases were larger than any other single type of tax including major sources of revenue such as income taxes national governors association and national association of state budget officers 2002 these increases did not coincide with increases in the mean real state excise tax on beer the only year in which real state excise taxes on beer rose was 1998 figure 1 omitted such trends could have been due to factors other than the settlement the goal of our empirical analysis is to assess whether the changes in cigarette excise taxes can be attributed to the settlement when other factors are held constant using pre post as well as state excise taxes on beer as controls in a panel data difference in difference approach the evidence on balance provides support for the view that litigation and cigarette excise taxes are complements which is consistent with changes in the political equilibrium ii data and empirical specification overview we use a panel data difference in difference d d regression design to test whether the litigation substituted for crowd out or complemented crowd in state excise taxes

specifying a model of state policy innovation how should policy innovations undertaken by states be modeled frances stokes berry and william d berry presented an event history analysis of the determinants of lottery adoptions by state governments in the june 1990 issue of this review howard front argues that the way berry and berry tested for interaction among variables is invalid on the grounds that what they take to be empirical results are only artifacts of the model specification in response the berrys elaborate their original model and add alternative specifications

divided we reform evidence from us welfare policies abstract divided government is often thought of as causing legislative deadlock i investigate the link between divided government and economic reforms using a novel data set on welfare reforms in us states between 1978 and 2010 panel data regressions show that under divided government a us state is around 25 more likely to adopt a welfare reform than under unified government several robustness checks confirm this counter intuitive finding case study evidence suggests an explanation based on policy competition between governor senate and house

state responses to fiscal crises the effects of budgetary institutions and politics this paper explores the dynamics of state taxes and spending during the late 1980s when regional economic downturns and increased expenditure demands led to substantial state budget deficits more restrictive state fiscal institutions such as no deficit carryover rules and tax and expenditure limitations are correlated with more rapid fiscal adjustment to unexpected deficits political factors are also important when a single party controls the state house and the governorship deficit adjustment is much faster than when party control is divided in gubernatorial election years tax increases and spending cuts are both significantly smaller than at other times

political business cycles 40 years after nordhaus the aim of this article is to survey the huge literature that has emerged in the last four decades following nordhaus s rev econ stud 42 2 169 190 1975 publication on political business cycles pbcs i first propose some developments in history of thought to examine the context in which this ground breaking contribution saw the light of the day i also present a simplified version of nordhaus s model to highlight his key results i detail some early critiques of this model and the fields of investigations to which they gave birth i then focus on the institutional context and examine its influence on pbcs the actual research agenda finally i derive some paths for future research

inter governmental institutions as promoters of energy policy diffusion in a federal setting this article is about diffusion processes behind the innovation of sub national energy policy measures in a federal system typically for the federal political system in switzerland the elements of the energy policy field are shaped by the principle of subsidiarity the aim is that cantons promote innovative problem solutions and regionally adapted implementation for this reason policy differences between cantons are large and create a need for coordination more concretely i will analyze the impact of inter cantonal institutions on different innovations in the field of energy policy the research question is approached with an event history analysis on three different innovative measures in the swiss cantons from 1990 to 2007 a more comprehensive picture of diffusion in one policy field is drawn with this approach the main contribution of this paper is the finding that intergovernmental institutions promote diffusion in one policy field only for measures with certain characteristics the internal determinants are therefore not a sufficient explanation

taxation and presidential approval separate effects from tax burden and tax structure turbulence previous research has established that taxation may impose significant electoral costs on politicians this literature however focuses exclusively on the effect of the tax burden in this paper we test the hypothesis that both the level of the tax burden and the change in the tax structure affect the us president s approval ratings over the 1959 2006 period our results support this proposition specifically we find a negative impact from the magnitudes of the tax burden and the deficit as well as from changes in the tax structure on presidential approval ratings

contagion effects and ethnic contribution networks many political behavior theories explicitly incorporate the idea that context matters in politics nonetheless the concept of spatial dependence in particular that behavior in geographic units is somehow related to and affected by behavior in neighboring areas is not extensively explored the study of campaign finance is no exception research in this area concentrates on the attributes of the individual donor leaving context underexplored concepts such as contribution networks for instance are not rigorously tested this article reexamines the impact of conventional socio demographic covariates on campaign donation behavior by ethnic contributors and explicitly models spatial effects the spatial analysis reveals that patterns of campaign donations are geographically clustered exhibiting both spatial dependence implying a neighborhood effect and spatial heterogeneity implying a regional effect and that this clustering cannot be explained completely by socio economic and demographic variables while socio demographic characteristics are important components of the dynamic underlying campaign contributions there is also evidence consistent with a contagion effect whereby ethnic contribution networks are fueling funds to candidate coffers

the origins of tax systems a french american comparison this article examines the origins of tax systems through a historical comparison of france and the united states and analysis of several shadow cases the article explains why the united states has relied more heavily on progressive income taxation than france which has favored regressive sales taxes this study traces the origins of these two tax systems to the early 20th century arguing that decisions about tax structure were shaped by resistance to the concentration of economic power in the united states and the centralization of state power in france in the united states the rapid concentration of economic power in the late 19th century spurred a political movement for a tax with clear redistributive purposes in france resistance to the centralization of state power and concomitant fears of fiscal inquisition weakened the drive for an effective income tax leaving the state to rely on consumption taxes to meet its revenue needs these 19th century movements of resistance to modernization shaped the foundations of contemporary political economy

a politico economic theory of income redistribution this study integrates models of income redistribution developed by economists who suggest that citizens voluntarily redistribute because of interdependent preferences and rely on the state for implementation owing to the public good nature of redistribution and political scientists who focus on conditions that lead to demands that the state intervene to assist the poor and on the development of institutions that facilitate such demands we propose a testable theory of redistribution and apply it to data from the american states the empirical analysis addresses determinants of the aid to families with dependent children guarantee adjusted for medicaid and food stamps to which a family receiving the guarantee would be entitled we posit significant links between the guarantee and both observable explanatory variables such as per capita income and latent constructs such as liberal party control we specify observable indicators for the latent constructs and use the lisrel method to estimate parameters for the indicators and structural coefficients the findings show that both political and economic variables significantly affect the level of the guarantee

state economies and state taxes do voters hold governors accountable theory states have sufficient autonomy in the policies they adopt that voters hold state officials partly responsible for the condition of the state economy as the best known state official elected by a statewide constituency governors in particular are held accountable for the economic performance of their states with respect to taxes the clear locus of responsibility in state actions and the high visibility of certain taxes suggest that governors will also be held responsible for increased rates hypotheses the performance of the state economy tax increases and voters personal financial situations all influence voting behavior in gubernatorial elections methods logit equations using 1986 abc washington post exit polls in 34 of 36 gubernatorial races combined with economic and tax data from the states results a poor state economy increases in taxes and lowered personal finances all contribute to votes against incumbent governors and their parties

overcoming collective action barriers to energy sustainability a longitudinal study of climate protection accord adoption by local governments abstract high levels of observed city involvement in energy and climate initiatives indicate that free riding has been much less of a barrier to local climate protection efforts than suggested by theories of collective action this study investigates why local governments have adopted various energy and climate change policy instruments despite the non excludability of climate benefits this paper advances theories of institutional collective action ica and policy diffusion by testing ica based hypotheses that local officials are able to overcome collective action problems to the extent that the costs of these initiatives are minimized through policy network interactions the extent to which climate action produces localized benefits or compliments local environmental development or growth management efforts and the extent to which energy and climate protection efforts generate selective benefits to elected and appointed local government officials who advance their career interests depending on the existing configurations of political system institutions analysis of adoptions of the climate protection agreements by florida cities indicates larger cities are more likely to adopt climate agreement while district elections decrease the likelihood of climate policy adoption moreover economic development rather than growth management or environmental problem situation is linked to climate initiatives

watershed partnerships and the emergence of collective action institutions this paper examines the emergence of local cooperative institutions watershed partnerships that resolve collective action problems involved in the management of natural resources the political contracting approach to institutional supply suggests that watershed partnerships are more likely to emerge when potential benefits outweigh the transaction costs of developing and maintaining new institutions we analyze the impact of social political economic and ecological features of watersheds that affect benefits and transaction costs on the emergence of 958 watershed partnerships in the more than 2 100 watersheds in the united states our findings demonstrate that watershed partnerships are most likely to emerge in watersheds confronting severe pollution problems associated with agricultural and urban runoff with low levels of command and control enforcement and containing the resources to offset transaction costs

the taxman tools up an event history study of the introduction of the personal income tax abstract the introduction of income taxation was a landmark in the historical development of the fiscal state of the now developed world this paper presents an event history study of the adoption of the income tax in 17 countries from western europe north america oceania and japan between 1815 and 1939 we find evidence that spending pressures reductions in tax collection costs and to a lesser extent social learning played a significant role for the adoption decision we also find evidence that the extension of the franchise at first reduced the likelihood of adoption of the income tax but eventually as universal suffrage was approached increased the likelihood

deficits and money growth in the united states a comment joines 1985 argues that the federal reserve accommodates war induced deficit spending but not non war induced deficit spending using a first difference form of a reaction function to obtain a stationary time series of the monetary base we find that the federal reserve has accommodated federal government deficit spending in the post world war ii period

the influence of elections on federal reserve behavior a political business cycle is tested in a monetary reaction function positive evidence is a result of the 1930s and 1940s and not post war elections in addition there is no evidence of such a cycle in a rational expectations model

unanticipated money and the political business cycle six different series of one period forecasts for money growth are generated for each year 1960 through 1984 the prediction errors are analyzed to see whet herthe authorities attempted to expand the economy in election years by unexpectedly raising money growth while there is no evidence of attempts to fool the public throughout the entire 1960 84 period such fooling may have been tried through 1974 it is speculated that the public discussion of expectations formation and of politicians motivations since then may have signaled officials that further attempts to mislead the public would be prohibitively costly copyright 1986 by ohio state university press

the use of inputs by the federal reserve system an extended model recently it has been argued that bureaucratic incentives play an important role in the formulation of policy and the inflationary bias of the federal reserve system shughart and tollison 1983 hereafter s t 1 in particular s t maintain that the fed can retain profits denominated in amenities but not in dollars as a result of the congressional constraint that excess profits be returned to the treasury this constraint provides bureaucratic incentives for the fed to purchase more amenities than a for profit organization and ex plains s t 1983 291 in part the fed s apparent inflationary bias expansionary monetary policy then enlarges the fed s profit amenities choices and allows it to pursue its goal of bureaucratic enhancement s t assume that the dollar value of these amenities is a monotonic transformation of fed employment using this public choice framework they develop a model in which the monetary base is a function of a number of variables including employment in the federal reserve system sysemp

the party of lincoln and the politics of state fair employment practices legislation in the north 1945 1964 from 1945 to 1964 more than a score of northern states passed laws mandating nondiscrimination in employment why did some states pass such fair employment practice fep laws much more slowly than other states this article presents archival and statistical evidence that partisan control of policy making institutions namely republican control of veto points in the legislative process is associated with a substantial reduction in the likelihood that a state would pass fep legislation even when controlling for potentially confounding variables this finding casts doubt on the leading account of the electoral realignment that began in the mid 1960s and culminated in the reagan bush years well before the advent of affirmative action key numbers of gop officeholders allied with organized business and motivated by a free market antiregulatory ideology worked successfully to block the adoption of color blind laws mandating formal racial equality

trendy solutions why do states adopt sustainable energy portfolio standards abstract thirty four states had adopted sustainable energy portfolio standards seps or similar goals by the end of 2008 with 14 adoptions since 2006 there appears to be something trendy about seps and states may adopt seps when internal variables would indicate otherwise this analysis extends the current discussion of seps adoption beyond internal variables relying on innovation and diffusion theory logistic regression with seps adoption as the dependent variable is used to test internal determinants and diffusion measures for the years 1997 2008 of the internal determinants variables affluence and government ideology were found to be positive and significant the results show that regional and neighbor diffusion variables are significant in seps adoption decisions even when accounting for ideological distance from previous adopters

disentangling patterns of state debt financing we examine the determinants of change in state government indebtedness from 1961 through 1989 using a pooled time series cross sectional analysis the analysis reveals that debt is primarily a function of economic conditions reflecting both the need to borrow and the capacity of states to repay debt however political factors such as culture partisan competition and electoral cycles also affect state debt we also find very weak evidence that tax and expenditure limitations ironically may increase state indebtedness while constitutional debt limitations have no effect upon slowing the growth of state debt

understanding the tax revolt eight explanations numerous explanations of the tax revolt have been offered since california s adoption of proposition 13 in 1978 unfortunately many of these explanations remain untested or have been tested inappropriately and the explanations are often jumbled together in a fashion that precludes theoretical clarity we extract eight explanations from the literature each of which assumes that the tax revolt is a systematic national phenomenon that is a function of individual level social economic and political factors having tested these explanations by means of a discriminant analysis of data from the 1978 american national election study we find little empirical corroboration for any of them this leads us to consider two alternative research programs one of which interprets the tax revolt within a symbolic politics framework

tax innovation in the states capitalizing on political opportunity this paper assesses the factors that prompt states to adopt taxes during the twentieth century we test five explanations of state tax innovation derived from the literature economic development fiscal health election cycle party control and regional diffusion using event history analysis a pooled cross sectional time series technique while little support is found for the economic development and party control explanations our empirical results are highly consistent with a political opportunity explanation of state tax adoptions 1 the presence of a long time until the next election 2 the existence of a fiscal crisis and 3 the presence of neighboring states that have previously adopted a tax all create opportunities for politicians to shield themselves from the political costs of supporting a tax increase and are all shown by empirical analysis to increase the probability of a tax adoption this empirical evidence is consistent across different tax instruments and different periods of analysis throughout the twentieth century

deficits and money growth in the united states 1872 1983 abstract this paper reports empirical evidence on the relation between government budget deficits and the growth of high powered money in the united states high powered money growth appears to be positively related to war spending during periods when such spending is a substantial fraction of gnp there is little evidence that the growth of high powered money is related to the non war government deficit measured either in cash or in real terms after controlling for the level of overall economic activity

elections and the fed is there a political monetary cycle to understand the political causes of macroeconomic policy it is necessary to examine the institutions that actually make such policy and the incentives those institutions face an explanation of the political causes of united states monetary policy must treat the various institutions that are influential in the monetary policy process which are at a minimum the federal reserve fed and the executive including the president the treasury department and other advisors in the executive office of the president the reelection motive has proven useful in modeling presidential incentives in this article i investigate whether electoral incentives associated with the theory of the political business cycle pbc can help to explain the behavior of the fed over the last quarter century the political business cycle has had a curious hold on modern political economy while the empirical evidence in favor of the cycle is far from overwhelming its theoretical importance leads to continuing empirical

effects of unit based garbage pricing a differences in differences approach using a unique 10 year dataset of all 458 dutch municipalities we apply a differences in differences approach to estimate the effect of unit based pricing on household waste quantities and recycling community level studies of unit based pricing typically do not include fixed effects at the local level we find that failure to do so may substantially inflate the estimated price effect we also find that unit based pricing may be endogenous and use instrumental variables to account for this our analysis shows that user fees depend on user fees in neighboring jurisdictions policy interaction our estimate of the garbage reduction per 1 user fee is lower than any previous estimate bar one the price effect depends on the pricing system weight based systems reduce garbage quantities more than volume based systems user fees increase recycling especially of paper but not nearly as much as they reduce garbage quantities we find no evidence for waste tourism or illegal dumping

inventory control with generalized expediting we consider a single item periodic review inventory control problem in which discrete stochastic demand must be satisfied when shortages occur the unmet demand must be filled by some form of expediting we allow a very general form for the cost structure of expediting we explicitly consider the case where expedited production is allowed to produce up to a positive inventory level we also consider the case where expedited production beyond the deficit is not permitted an alternate application for this model is an inventory system with general lost sales costs for the infinite horizon discounted problem we characterize the structure of the optimal stationary expediting policy and show that an s s policy is optimal for regular production for the special cases where the expediting cost function is concave or consists of a fixed and linear per unit cost we show that the optimal stationary expediting policy is generalized s s or order up to respectively a numerical study allows us to gain insight into when expediting above and beyond the deficit is cost effective