does trading votes in national elections change election outcomes although forbidden in democratic states a market for votes could improve efficiency this paper examines the way trading votes will change the outcome of an election a two party model with two phases is presented in the pre trading phase the two parties set their agendas consisting of a direct subsidy and an income tax in the trading phase voters buy and sell votes on the basis of rational voter behavior and a given income distribution it is shown that the outcome of the election depends mainly on how the selling voters are distributed among the voters

capital budgets borrowing rules and state capital spending abstract this paper compares the level and composition of government spending in u s states that maintain separate budgets for capital and operating expenditures with that in states that employ unified budgets it also investigates the effects of pay as you go financing rules for capital projects the empirical findings suggest that states with separate capital budgets spend more on public capital projects than comparable states with unified budgets there is no evidence that the presence or absence of a capital budget affects the level of non capital spending pay as you go requirements for financing capital projects are associated with lower levels of both capital and non capital spending

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

an examination of the market for favors and votes in congress this paper examines the strategies that horse traders and power brokers adopt in trading favors to pass legislation although the favors that they trade are generally impossible to observe the paper develops a model that allows tests of favor trading with data from the senate vote on the byrd amendment to the 1990 clean air act i conduct such a test the test provides evidence that on this vote i favor trading occurred ii the coalition leaders practiced price discrimination and iii the coalition leaders did not collude with each another

heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution a partial survey heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution are surveyed focusing on major theories and recent contributions first a general framework for examining growth and distribution is discussed in terms of which classical marxian and post keynesian kaleckian and other theories are presented since this framework examines how variables are determined in equilibrium second dynamics behind equilibria are examined focusing on goods market and labor market changes third the framework is extended in a variety of ways to examine additional models addressing productivity growth and technical change money and inflation finance and debt additional distributional considerations multisector issues open economy questions and the environment it is concluded that the literature on heterodox theories of growth and distribution is vibrant large and growing and addresses many issues that are ignored or neglected in orthodox theories including power unemployment and aggregate demand

technology distribution and the rate of profit in the us economy understanding the current crisis this paper offers a synoptic account of the state of the debate among marxist scholars regarding the current structural crisis of capitalism identifies two broad streams within the literature dealing in turn with aggregate demand and profitability problems and proceeds to concentrate on an analysis of issues surrounding the profitability problem in two steps first evidence on profitability trends for the non farm non financial corporate business the non financial corporate business and the corporate business sectors in post war usa are summarised a broad range of profit rate measures are covered and data from both the us bureau of economic analysis nipa and fixed assets tables and the federal reserve flow of funds account are used second the underlying drivers of profitability in terms of technology and distribution are investigated the profitability analysis is used to offer some hypotheses about the current structural crisis copyright oxford university press

vote buying in a stylized setting as we noted in the introduction we do not propose to discuss possible implications for the real world of democratic politics that may be drawn from the highly stylized models of vote buying that we have analyzed in this paper to the extent that economic legal or moral thresholds prevent the emergence of the purchase and sale of votes among persons who initially possess property rights in the collective franchise our whole analysis is simply inapplicable if however such thresholds serve only to inhibit but not to prevent totally the emergence of such markets there should be some value in an analysis that embodies the zero transactions costs assumption

how much income redistribution an explanation based on vote buying and corruption this paper studies how income tax rates are determined and how they are related to government corruption in the form of fund capture a model is presented where rich voters can block redistribution by buying the votes of some poor voters in equilibrium there is only limited redistribution and income tax rates are a negative function of government corruption when rich voters can bribe the government an additional equilibrium with zero taxation is possible the link between corruption and tax rates is tested using cross country data the empirical evidence is fully consistent with the predictions of the model

the industrial organization of congress or why legislatures like firms are not organized as markets this paper provides a theory of legislative institutions that parallels the theory of the firm and the theory of contractual institutions like market institutions legislative institutions reflect two key components the goals or preferences of individuals here representatives seeking reelection and the relevant transactions costs we present three conclusions first we show how the legislative institutions enforce bargains among legislators second we explain why given the peculiar form of bargaining problems found in legislatures specific forms of nonmarket exchange prove superior to market exchange third our approach shows how the committee system limits the types of coalitions that may form on a particular issue

bureaucrats legislators and the size of government some recent theories have blamed the growth of government on budget maximizing bureaucrats who are assumedly capable of imposing their most preferred budget output combination on legislatures subject to cost and demand constraints however theoretical examination of the range of bargaining outcomes that might occur between bureau and legislature shows that budget maximizing behavior does not necessarily lead to super optimal levels of production nor do the suggested reforms of competition and privatization necessarily improve the situation in this bargaining model the central determinants of governmental growth are not budget maximizing bureaucrats but the legislature s decisions regarding mode of oversight and form of internal organization

the budget process and the size of the budget the new congressional budget process provides members of congress with a new set of institutional mechanisms for making budget decisions this article addresses the question of whether or under what conditions rigid application of the new budget process modeled as first selection of the size of the budget and second its division produces smaller budgets than a piecemeal appropriations process in which the size of the budget is determined residually the theoretical result is that the new process sometimes results in relatively large budgets a testable implication of the theory is that given a choice of how stringently the budget process is to be employed members of congress jointly consider preferences and the expected outcomes under available institutional arrangements and select the arrangement usually a rule that yields the most favorable outcome empirical results from the budget process in the house from 1980 to 1983 are generally supportive of the theoretically derived hypothesis of rational choice of institutional arrangements

turnover time and the organic composition of capital this article argues that marx s key concepts of the organic and value compositions of capital depend on his concept of the turnover time of variable capital methods are given for measuring these three indicators which are applied to the us national accounts from 1947 onwards the results show unambiguous tendencies for the organic and value compositions of capital to rise and for the turnover time of variable capital to fall this is consistent with marx s predictions in capital and his explanation for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall

the political economy of benefits and costs a neoclassical approach to distributive politics this essay offers a rational political explanation for the notorious inefficiency of pork barrel projects with an optimization model of legislative behavior and legislative institutions the model emphasizes the economically arbitrary from a welfare point of view importance of the geographic incidence of benefits and costs owing to the geographic basis for political representation we explore the implications of a legislator s objective function and derive conditions under which a representative legislature will select an omnibus of projects each of which exceeds the efficient scale

bureaucracy monopoly and competition a critical analysis of the budget maximizing model of bureaucracy niskanen has argued that if government bureaus act so as to maximize their budgets they will always produce an output greater than a private industry resulting in efficiency losses to society since the budget maximizing model relates to a number of intersecting areas of organizational analysis from several disciplines it is important to note the limitations of the model first niskanen s result is only true for a bureau which can exercise perfect price discrimination in its relationship with its financial sponsor where this is not the case the bureau may produce less than a private industry second further variation is introduced by examining the effects on a bureau of specialized resources public goods competition and low productivity a bureau which would otherwise produce an output in excess of the competitive level will when any of these factors are present produce an output closer to the competitive output these results may also have significant policy implications since major industrial countries are favoring policies to return some governmental activities to the private sector

bibliography of james m buchanan s publications 1949 1986 1 prices income and public policy with c l allen and m r colberg new york mcgraw hill 1954 second edition 1959 2 public principles of public debt homewood richard d irwin 1958 3 the public finances homewood richard d irwin 1960 second edition 1965 translated into spanish as hacienda publica 1968 third edition 1970 translated into japanese 1972 fourth edition with marilyn flowers 1975 fifth edition with marilyn flowers 1980 sixth edition with marilyn flowers 1986 4 fiscal theory and political economy chapel hill university of north carolina press 1960 translated into turkish 1965 translated into japanese 1972 5 the calculus of consent logical foundations of constitutional democracy with gordon tullock ann arbor university of michigan press 1962 paperback edition 1965 translated into japanese 1979 translated into spanish 1980 6 public finance in democratic process chapel hill university of north carolina press 1966 translated into japanese 1971 translated into spanish 1973 7 demand and supply of public goods chicago rand mcnally 1968 translated into italian 1968 translated into japanese 1974 8 cost and choice an inquiry in economic theory chicago markham publishing co october 1969 out of print reprinted by university of chicago press midway reprint 1979 9 academia in anarchy an economic diagnosis with nicos devletoglou basic books 1970 english edition 1971 10 theory of public choice political applications of economics edited with robert tollison university of michigan press 1972 11 lse essays on cost edited with g f thirlby london wiedenfeld and nicholson 1973 12 the limits of liberty between anarchy and leviathan chicago university of chicago press 1975 translated into japanese 1977 translated into italian 1979 translated into german 1984 13 democracy in deficit the political legacy of lord keynes with richard e wagner new york academic press 1978 translated into japanese 1979 translated into korean 1981 14 freedom in constitutional contract perspective of a political economist college station texas a m university press 1978 15 whatshould economistsdo indianapolis indiana liberty press 1979

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

public employee pensions and the local labor budget abstract this paper examines the causes and consequences of public employee pension funding by local governments the pension funding decision is analyzed within the context of two models one where current taxpayers stay and pay employees future retirement benefits and a second model where current taxpayers move and thereby hope to avoid paying future retirement benefits the empirical results test the alternative models for a sample of 60 large u s cities using data for local police and fire services the effects of underfunding on local wages and employment is then examined and found to be significant implications for national pension funding policy are drawn

realization and accumulation in a marxian model of the circuit of capital abstract a mathematical model of marx s circuit of capital is presented whose elements the composition of capital the rate of surplus value the rate of capitalization of surplus value and production sales and financial time lags are measurable from the accounts of capitalist firms the model is solved for exponential paths a solution with a positive rate of accumulation generally exists on paths with positive rates of accumulation and positive time lags in the recommital of realized value to production an expansion of credit is required to permit the sale of commodities a model of demand pull inflation is incorporated in the framework

stock flow consistent macroeconomic models a survey the stock flow consistent sfc modelling approach grounded in the pioneering work of wynne godley and james tobin in the 1970s has been adopted by a growing number of researchers in macroeconomics especially after the publication of monetary economics by godley and lavoie which provided a general framework for the analysis of whole economic systems and the recognition that macroeconomic models integrating real markets with flow of funds analysis had been particularly successful in predicting the great recession of 2007 2009 we introduce the general features of the sfc approach for a closed economy showing how the core model has been extended to address issues such as financialization and income distribution we next discuss the implications of the approach for models of open economies and compare the methodologies adopted in developing sfc empirical models for whole countries we review the contributions where the sfc approach is being adopted as the macroeconomic closure of microeconomic agent based models and how the sfc approach is at the core of new research in ecological macroeconomics finally we discuss the appropriateness of the name sfc for the class of models we survey