local government structure and public expenditures the law of 1 n postulates a positive relationship betweenthe number of democratically electedrepresentative districts and governmentspending strong support for thisrelationship exists in legislatures in theunited states at both the state andnational level and across countries fewstudies have examined this relationship atthe local level despite the fact that localgovernments operate under constraintssimilar to those faced by representativelegislatures using a sample of georgiacounties we find the number of countycommissioners to be positively correlatedwith county government expenditures indicating support for the law of 1 nat the local level

the spread of municipal reform temporal spatial and social dynamics the adoption of commission and managerial administrative structures and their subsequent abandonment by the 267 largest american cities during the period 1900 1942 is studied using event history methods full period equations show no significant direct effect of percentage catholic culture clash or population size hierarchical diffussion and only a modest impact of city age modernization a strong effect from average annual manufacturing wages is found but in a direction contrary to that posited by the class conflict hypothesis the variable affecting transition rates most strongly appears to be regional adoption percentages an indicator of neighborhood diffusion these findings suggest revisions of the conventional image of the municipal reform experience

local government structure and the quality of minority neighborhoods one of the most long standing and controversial issues surrounding local government structure in the united states is how reformed political institutions have impacted minority neighborhoods a common belief is that reformism has harmed these neighborhoods but there is no empirical evidence on this issue drawing upon capital asset pricing theory this paper empirically investigates the effects of two reforms the council manager form of government and at large councilor elections on the quality of nonwhite neighborhoods quality is found to be higher in majority white places with at large as opposed to district based elections quality is not found to be affected by the form of government

farmers willingness to pay for power in india conceptual issues survey results and implications for pricing abstract the objective of this paper is to develop strategies useful for raising prices of rural power in india such power is currently subsidized and policymakers are eager to make the transition to more efficient prices the traditionally used measure willingness to pay wtp is shown to have no useful policy implications due to the rationing of power using survey data from rural andhra pradesh we show that the utility s cost of power exceeds the income generated by the power this suggests a political problem the possibility that low power prices have led to large scale farming of unproductive land that will be hard to resolve our survey also shows that subsidies are regressive with income we use measured wtp for higher income groups to propose a discriminatory pricing regime that will raise total revenue by 20 when combined with removing the causes of motor burnout such as voltage fluctuations and eliminating rostering subsidies can be reduced substantially but probably remain too high to be resolved without political action

micro estimates of public spending demand functions and tests of the tiebout and median voter hypotheses responses to questions given to a random sample of michigan households are used to estimate public spending demand functions while income and price elasticities are similar to those obtained from aggregate data positive income elasticities appear to arise because public services are distributed in a prorich manner a relatively small variance in spending demands among urban and suburban communities in metropolitan areas with substantial public service variety suggests that the tiebout mechanism works this interpretation is supported by the fact that actual spending conforms substantially to desired levels in urban areas but less so in rural areas with little public sector choice

the effect of land use regulation on housing and land prices abstract this paper investigates the effects of land use regulation restrictiveness on house and vacant land prices in contrast to prior studies the index of restrictiveness is treated as an endogenous variable and estimated effects are allowed to vary by market setting using data on more than 100 florida cities greater regulation restrictiveness is found to increase house price and decrease land price evidence is also provided showing that more restrictiveness increases the size of newly constructed homes

local government type and municipal bond ratings what s the relationship abstractthere is an extensive literature analysing the executive branch within local u s government jurisdictions this has largely revolved around the differences between elected mayors and appointed city managers much of the academic work has considered the potential efficiency gains that may be associated with either form of government and comparative analyses between the two however the empirical literature has been divided regarding the relative efficiency of either form this article attempts to add to that literature by considering how bond markets may perceive potential efficiencies that emerge from one executive type over the other by evaluating bond ratings for a sample of large municipal governments in the united states overall the results suggest that municipalities headed by a city manager are associated with increased bond ratings and thus lower borrowing costs which may lend support that this form of administration is on some margin relatively more efficient than others these re

the influence of the number of statewide legislative referendums on voter participation in the us this empirical study seeks to broaden the interpretation of the rational voter model so as to include the potential effects of the number of statewide legislative referendums this study tests the hypothesis that greater numbers of such referendums increase voter turnout because they elevate the expected gross benefits egb of voting by empowering voters while not significantly increasing the expected gross costs egc of voting using state level data for the 2006 general election in the us as well as the 2004 us presidential election and after allowing for a variety of economic and demographic factors this study finds compelling evidence that the number of statewide legislative referendums does significantly increase voter turnout

local institutions and the politics of urban growth this article uses a political market framework to analyze how the structure of local political institutions affects the relative political influence of development and environmental interests in the context of urban growth using panel data from 406 florida cities from 1998 to 2003 the empirical analysis finds important interaction effects between the structure of city executive branch institutions and interest group variables the economic and political forces driving urban growth do not operate identically in all cities they vary as a function of institutional context institutional structure helps determine which interest groups have their preferences reflected in local land use changes and development patterns the resulting patterns suggest a sustainability paradox wherein richer environmental interests push for the preservation of environmental amenities while at the same time accelerating the number of residential units built in a community

the allocation of resources by voting a general theory of voting which explains under what conditions voting will be chosen as a means for allocating resources and how the constitution that governs the voting will be structured is presented it is hypothesized that developers of voting organizations will structure their organizations in order to maximize the value of shares sold by minimizing the expected costs of wealth transfer and decision making in the voting organization implications regarding the allocation of votes and assessments within the organization the domain of voting decisions and the optimal voting rule are tested with data on the constitutional structure of condominium homeowner associations

terms of trade shock and the current account in a monetary economy over the period 1973 81 the terms of trade of non oil developing countries deteriorated at about 2 per cent per annum this was accompanied by an increase in current account deficits in excess of 3 per cent above what they had been in the previous decade see khan and knight 1983 for a discussion these authors find the terms of trade shocks the major cause of the deficits this has led to a renewal of interest in the effects of changes in terms of trade for a small open economy the conventional wisdom first put forward by laursen and metzler 1950 and harberger 1950 emphasized the fact that a terms of trade worsening lowered real income which in turn lowered savings and worsened the current account the laursen metzler effect the recent reappraisal was initiated by obstfeld 1982 he showed in an infinite horizon optimizing framework with perfect capital mobilizing that if the discount rate was a function of the level of utility surpluses and not deficits accompany an unanticipated and permanent terms of trade worsening the long run level of the discount rate is tied down by the given world rate of interest this in turn fixes the long run level of utility the terms of trade shock tends to lower the level of utility and agents save to offset this across steady states there is only a substitution effect on the other hand if the discount rate is fixed and equal to the world interest rate then the economy adjusts to the terms of trade shock by immediately lowering real expenditure by the same amount as the decline in real income so that the current account is always balanced svensson and razin 1983 showed that in a two period framework this does not necessarily happen for the infinite horizon case they showed that if preferences were separable over time and the discount rate was increasing in instantaneous utility then obstfeld s results were indeed obtained in a two period overlapping generations model the results could be modified owing to the fact that human wealth and non human wealth are not perfect substitutes and a terms of trade shock affects these differently see matsuyama 1988 for a discussion but it is still true that an unanticipated permanent terms of trade shock has a one shot effect on the current account unless some ad hoc costs of adjustment are introduced see e g persson and svensson 1985 and matsuyama 1988 the uncertain lifetime model see e g frenkel and razin 1988 and matsuyama 1987 generates non trivial

recent developments in macroeconomics underlying the existence of macroeconomics as a separate field of study are the phenomena of economy wide fluctuations of output and prices and sometimes persistent high levels of unemployment two basic views of macroeconomic behavior have persisted even as conceptual innovati ons and the application of more powerful analytic and empirical techn iques have brought significant changes in understanding of the macroe conomy copyright 1988 by royal economic society

aggregate spending and the terms of trade is there a laursen metzler effect this paper investigates the spending and current account effects of terms of trade shifts in a model where households maximize utility over an infinite planning period in the framework developed here an economy specialized in production must experience a fall in aggregate spending and a current surplus as a result of an unanticipated permanent worsening in its terms of trade the paper s model thus provides a setting in which the current account deficit predicted by laursen and metzier harberger and others fails to materialize

currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach currency prices terms of trade and interest rates a general equilibrium asset pricing cash in advance approach

distributive politics ward representation and the spread of zoning this analysis examines two alternative explanations for the adoption of comprehensive zoning ordinances in the years immediately following its initial adoption in new york city the market failure explanation predicts zoning adoption in cities where externality problems represented by heavy incidence of manufacturing exist the distributive policymaking model treats zoning as a form of regulation that is most likely to be found in cities where local legislators are elected from geographically concentrated constituencies e g wards and therefore try to target policy benefits to their own constituencies while spreading the policy costs over all constituencies some support is found for each model especially striking is the interactive effect of ward representation and of economic interest i e levels of home ownership

currency substitution and the real exchange rate the utility maximization approach abstract this paper studies the currency substitution hypothesis with rational expectations in terms of a sidrauski type model where domestic and foreign money enter the utility function it shows that contrary to liviatan 1981 the approach does not necessarily contradict calvo and rodriguez 1977 furthermore the impact of monetary stabilization policy is fully characterized with flexible and pre fixed rates for an extension of dornbusch and mussa 1975 a brief analysis of the optimal quantity of money is also provided

the terms of trade and the current account the harberger laursen metzler effect the paper examines the effect of terms of trade changes on a small country s spending and current account assuming optimizing behavior in an intertemporal framework with perfect international capital mobility a temporary future terms of trade deterioration implies a deterioration improvement of the trade balance whereas a permanent terms of trade deterioration has an ambiguous effect depending on the rate of time preference nominal and real variables are considered via exact price indexes two periods and an infinite horizon are examined

current account dynamics and the terms of trade harberger laursen metzler two generations later this is a study of the current account dynamics resulting from the savings and investment dynamics in a small open economy which is subject to exogenous changes in its terms of trade and in world interest rates anticipated and unanticipated as well as temporary and permanent terms of trade changes have very different effects there is however a general tendency towards cycles in both savings and investment which gives rise to cycles in the current account it is shown that the classic harberger laursen metzler effect on saving of a terms of trade deterioration can have any sign for plausible parameter values both for temporary and permanent disturbances

diffusion of regulatory impact analysis among oecd and eu member states with the exception of few comparative case studies the literature on regulatory reform and regulatory impact analysis ria tends to focus on internal political actors activities and processes furthermore empirical analyses of new public management have overlooked the dynamics of communications among networks of administrative reformers this article fills these gaps presenting results of an event history analysis on the diffusion of ria it probes rationales for the origin of ria and administrative capacity explanations in combination with variables referring to international and transnational communication channels of administrative reforms a hypothesis based on legal origin is also tested the findings show that the decision to adopt ria rests on transnational networks as well as administrative variables such as government expenditure and legal origin

competing interests and the political market for smart growth policy the broad intent of smart growth is to reduce development in environmentally sensitive areas by limiting the outward expansion of development and redirecting private investment to urban areas local decisions that shape and constrain land uses can pit narrow economic interests against broader based environmental organisations and impact decisions on smart growth based on the political market framework this study specifically examines the influence of pro growth and smart growth interest groups on smart growth policies adopted by local governments in the state of massachusetts usa the results suggest both real estate interests and environmental groups influence local policy decisions and depending on the policy the characteristics of local political institutions mediate these influences

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

deterioration of the terms of trade and capital accumulation a reexamination of the laursen metzler effect abstract this paper analyzes the effect of both a permanent and a temporary deterioration in the terms of trade on a small open economy the model based on intertemporal optimization emphasizes the labor leisure choice and the role of capital accumulation the transitional dynamics is shown to depend upon the long run response of the capital stock to the terms of trade shock this consists of a negative substitution effect together with a positive income effect whether or not the laursen metzler effect holds depends upon whether the income effect dominates the substitution effect

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

economic populism partial deregulation of transport fuels and electoral outcomes in india abstract the indian political class is known to employ populist albeit economically unsustainable measures to replace intrinsic valence especially shortly prior to election windows such measures include loan waivers interest rate concessions provision of free electricity for agriculturists etc the union government s leverage to maneuver and to micro manage retail fuel prices within partially deregulated environments is hypothesized to provide incumbents with an advantage over rival contestants in the electoral process this paper analyzes the evolution in the retail prices of diesel and petrol gasoline and the transfer of such evolution into the inflation index of the all commodity basket it is observed that when international benchmark prices are relatively low and domestic inflation is moderate the transfer occurs within about 42 weeks during periods of high oil prices frequently above usd 100 a barrel and high inflation higher than 5 00 5 50 prices of petroleum distillates tend to feed into overall inflation more rapidly within about 34 40 weeks the study covering a total of 82 elections for the central and state provincial governments during the period 2000 to 2013 concludes that even as patterns of manipulation of prices are apparent ceteris paribus such leverage does not necessarily seem to translate into favorable electoral outcomes this conclusion reiterates observations that economic im prudence may not necessarily determine electoral outcomes and that the basis for electoral choices made by the indian voter consumer remains subjective

universal health insurance in the clinton plan coverage as a tax financed public good the financing arrangements embodied in the clinton health reform plan involve some important differences in the way in which public goods are usually financed the subsidies to small low wage firms mandated to provide benefits distort markets in both labor and products and offer incentives for the creation of small firms in addition the financing scheme implicitly envisions a head tax on families at modest income levels but offers a possible rationale for it nevertheless the main reason for many of the financing features appears to be an attempt to hold down the apparent budgetary cost of universal coverage

direct democracy and land use policy exchanging public goods for development rights to counter the power of pro development interests growth opponents in american communities have increasingly turned to the institutions of direct democracy this study analyses the effects of one type of direct democracy voter requirements for new development on municipal growth analysing data from a sample of california communities we consider the impact of voter requirements on the land use process and outcomes we find that in general voter requirements fail to stop new development property owners and developers can and do adapt to the constraints created by these direct democracy institutions we also find however that voter requirements change the land use process in important ways specifically they change the way developers interact with interest groups in the community and force developers to compensate current residents for enduring some of the negative aspects of growth

current account dynamics in a finite horizon model abstract this paper examines the response of the current account in a small open economy to a permanent change in the price of imported intermediate goods to do so it extends blanchard s 1985 open economy model to incorporate the capital stock with adjustment costs a la hayashi 1982 a price increase in imported intermediate goods can be viewed as a combination of transfer payments abroad and capital taxation the former effect leads to a current account deficit and the latter leads to a current account surplus the overall effect depends on the relative magnitude of these effects

non global social contracts a note on inefficient social institutions this paper explores some perverse features that can emerge when social contracts are moved from a social vacuum to a setting of social interdependence in particular we note incentives that might exist in conjunction with externality problems that yield situations in which 1 social contracts reduce social wealth 2 sub global social contracts are pareto inferior to the absence of social contracts 3 there are no incentives for global social contracts while previous works emphasized the benefits of contracts this paper focuses on their costs a conclusion reached is that perhaps justice and efficiency demand not a single global social contract but rather a rich melange of sub global contracts with appropriate interstices of anarchy

community power and population increase an empirical test of the growth machine model attempts to relate community power to policy outputs have been criticized for lacking theoretical relevance and statistical significance to overcome these criticisms this research employs a power policy model based on a political economy framework which utilizes molotch s conpetion of the community as a growth machine analysis of the permanent community sample provides strong power policy relationships that support the major tenets of the growth machine explanation as members of the business elite gain power they can successfully promote population growth that provides them with greater profits through higher property values the most widely cited common good for growth lower unemployment does not accrue this supports the relevance of a political economy approach to community phenomena and suggests different directions for community power research

the choice of municipal government structure and public expenditures numerous empirical studies have attempted to measure the effect of varying government structures on public expenditures i argue that these prior may have produced biased estimates as they are predicated on the assumption that government structures are exogenous

monetary expansion and real exchange rate dynamics this paper examines the effect of a change in the rate of monetary expansion on the dynamics of the real exchange rate under fully flexible domestic prices and a floating exchange rate the model is similar in structure to an ealier paper by calvo and rodriguez the main difference being that in our model consumers have an infinite planning horizon and long run perfect foresight one of the main findings is that an increase in the rate of monetary expansion has the impact effect of creating a real appreciation of the exchange rate and a deterioration of the balance of payments contrary to the results of calvo and rodriguez

the mechanisms of policy diffusion local policy adoptions provide an excellent opportunity to test among potential mechanisms of policy diffusion by examining three types of antismoking policy choices by the 675 largest u s cities between 1975 and 2000 we uncover robust patterns of policy diffusion yielding three key findings first we distinguish among and find evidence for four mechanisms of policy diffusion learning from earlier adopters economic competition among proximate cities imitation of larger cities and coercion by state governments second we find a temporal component to these effects with imitation being a more short lived diffusion process than the others third we show that these mechanisms are conditional with larger cities being better able to learn from others less fearful of economic spillovers and less likely to rely on imitation

demographic factors affecting constitutional decisions the case of municipal charters after decades of studying municipal charters largely by looking for patterns in the data we have a good basis for proceeding more formally with testable theories the political significance of demographic change becomes apparent by looking at its impact on political conflict in combination with the biases in social choice rules the theory of civil rights provides a framework for doing this it suggests identifying 1 the distribution of civil rights conveyed to citizens by alternative charters and 2 the bases for political conflict such as different demands for services and the unequal command of economic resources to satisfy them charters then become political tools simple statistical tests fail to refute this

property taxation and local public spending the renter effect the point of departure for this study is the pervasive finding that other things equal local jurisdictions tend to spend more on local services the larger the fraction of renters among their residents this paper seeks to determine the approximate magnitude of this renter effect by posing the question how much smaller would local public budgets be if all residents were home owners making use of two quite different approaches the paper finds a typical renter effect on local public expenditure on the order of ten percent this finding suggests that we might do well to reform the administration of the property tax so that changes in property tax liabilities on rental dwellings are directly and visibly transformed into changes of monthly rental payments

political pricing of electricity can it go with universal service provision abstract political parties in india are known to use electricity prices as a tool to secure a win in the democratic election process this article examines the setting of electricity prices from a political economy perspective citizens differ in their willingness to pay for electricity and the consumer surplus and electoral uncertainty seem to influence their choices while exercising their franchise to win political parties must receive a majority of votes and a party in power may try to achieve this by choosing to ignore a consumer group either by charging a price higher than their willingness to pay or by choosing to satisfy them by charging a lower price two theoretical models are proposed the first model computes the possible prices when common perfectly correlated electoral shocks are anticipated while the second model computes the possible prices for independent and identically distributed electoral shocks we test these models with available data on willingness to pay and electricity price for agricultural domestic and industrial consumers in an indian state by generating prices that would be charged to each of these types of consumers to maximize the chances of re election actual prices seem to confirm the second model more than the first

city level analysis of the effect of political regimes on public good provision this paper uses u s city level data on five public expenditure categories to test empirically whether the form of local government affects the amount of public good provision this also serves as an empirical test of a theory of national politics that predicts higher provision of public good in parliamentary than in presidential regimes the robust results indicate that at the city level the mayor council form of government provides significantly more public good than the council manager form of government for two of the public expenditure categories and at the national level presidential regimes provide more public good than do parliamentary regimes

the determination of local public expenditures and the principal and agent relation a case study the principal and agent relationship is important in the public sector there elected or appointed representatives act on behalf of the citizens of their jurisdictions this paper examines the importance of the budget referendum which allows the principals to approve or disapprove the proposal of a set of agents in the context of local public expenditure decisions we test the null hypothesis that the institution of referendum when compared to a nonreferendum institution does not lead to significantly different expenditure behavior

social network effects on the extent of innovation diffusion a computer simulation of innovation diffusion no longer focus exclusively on explaining the rate at which innovations diffuse or the sequence in which they are adopted they also focus on explaining why certain innovations diffuse extensively be coming de facto standards whereas others do so partially or not at all many of these theories specify a bandwagon process a positive feedback loop in which increases in the number of adopters create stronger bandwagon pressures and stronger bandwagon pressures in turn cause increases in the number of adopters factors affecting if and how many times this feedback loop cycles explain if and how many potential adopters jump on a bandwagon we argue that one important factor has not yet been incorporated into theories explaining bandwagons extent the structure of social net works through which potential adopters of innovations find out information about these innovations which can cause them to adopt these innovations we advance a theory of how the structure of social networks affects bandwagons extent we propose that both the number of network links as well as small seemingly insignificant idiosyncracies of their structures can have very large effects on the extent of an innovation s diffusion among members of a social network

privatisation of waste collection services in response to fiscal stress in times of crisis according to the conventional theoretical framework fiscal stress is an explanatory factor of privatisation since the latter can provide economies of scale and cost savings as indicated by the theory of public choice however urban planning theories suggest that public choice does not take into account the collective needs of those receiving public services the present study aims to clarify two major issues firstly in the presence of fiscal stress do public managers really privatise and secondly does privatisation harm the public interest to investigate these questions we constructed and analysed a discrete time survival model which was applied to the period 2000 2010 to reflect the effects of the current global financial crisis on the fiscal stress privatisation relationship with respect to urban waste collection services the results obtained indicate that when certain aspects of financial condition worsen the likelihood of public services being privatised increases this was the case dur

the buchanan tullock model some extensions in their seminal work the calculus of consent 1962 buchanan and tullock develop a decision model which embodies fundamental relation ships relevant to institutional choices however the buchanan tullock model remains general thus inviting others to specify details and to develop extensions the present paper seeks to explicate this important model so as to clarify the framework in certain important ways and then to extend the model by introducing explicit considerations of such dimensions as group size and group preference heterogeneity as explicit variables

interjurisdictional competition and local public finance assessing the modifying effects of institutional incentives and fiscal constraints analysts have sought for years to explain the variations in municipal expenditures across communities with only modest success however recent efforts combining core propositions from the leviat

sovereignty relinquished explaining commitment to the international human rights covenants 1966 1999 this article examines whether the content of the international human rights covenants and the costs associated with their ratification influence the decision of countries to join the author evaluates three theoretical perspectives rationalism world polity institutionalism and the clash of civilizations with data for more than 130 countries between 1966 and 1999 rationalists contend that treaty ratification is tightly coupled with internal sovereignty arrangements human rights practices and ideological commitments all of which become more important as treaty enforcement strengthens world polity institutionalists expect ratification to be loosely coupled with a country s conduct or its political ideological or cultural commitments although this gap narrows as compliance is more effectively enforced a civilizations approach predicts tight coupling between ratification and cultural values regardless of the mechanisms in place for enforcing compliance results lend partial support to rationalism a

competing for global capital or local voters the politics of business location incentives the competition for global capital has led to interjurisdictional competition between countries states and cities as to who can offer the most attractive incentives to firms in this study we examine the domestic politics of this competition by focusing on incentive use in the united states from 1999 to 2012 we define incentives as the targeted tax deductions or exemptions that are used to lure businesses into a locality drawing on data from municipal incentive programs we examine how electoral competition shapes the use and oversight of targeted incentives we find evidence that cities with elected mayors provide larger incentives than non elected city managers by taking advantage of exogeneity in the assignment of city government institutions and a database of over 2000 investment incentives from 2010 to 2012 we also find that elected mayors enjoy more lax oversight of incentive projects than their appointed counterparts our results have important implications for the study of interjurisdictional competition and the role of electoral institutions in shaping economic policy

forms of government and climate change policies in us cities it has long been believed that council manager governments with professionally trained public managers are more efficiency oriented and insulated from political pressure than mayor council governments despite the general acceptance of this conventional wisdom empirical evidence to support the predicted differences in policy has been extremely hard to come by most studies have found no direct effect of form of government on expenditures or policy the effect of local institutions has been indirect working to amplify or reduce supplier or demander preferences in contrast this paper examines a unique dataset of sustainability efforts in governmental operations and the community and reports evidence that forms of government are an important direct influence on the approach that communities take to sustainability council manager government systems have a significant positive effect on efforts directed to governmental operations but a negative effect on community efforts

hierarchical accountability in government abstract this paper studies a setting where a relatively uninformed voter holds a policymaker accountable through an informed intermediary in equilibrium the voter uses the intermediary to insulate the policymaker from pandering incentives when the voter s policy expertise is low or the policymaker s congruence is high the voter can thus enjoy the benefits of bureaucratic expertise without forfeiting electoral responsiveness we examine the model s predictions using u s city level data and find that hierarchically accountable managers reduce popular city employment and adjust it more flexibly than electorally accountable mayors the estimated incentive effects are smaller in cities with high voter expertise and larger during election years and are robust to instrumentation by precipitation shocks that influenced early 20th century manager government adoptions for reasons obsolete today

terms of trade factor intensities and the current account in a life cycle model this paper examines the effects of terms of trade changes on the external adjustment of a small open economy where each consumer has a life cycle saving function the supply side of the economy is given by the standard two sector model with two primary factors labour and capital it is shown that when both commodities are produced a terms of trade deterioration leads to a current account deficit surplus if the export import sector is more labour intensive

making meaningful commitments accounting for variation in cities investments of staff and fiscal resources to sustainability environmental sustainability is one of the great challenges of the 21st century a number of explanations have been advanced for why some local governments make strong commitments to sustainability while others do not most of the extant empirical research however has relied on models that employ only one or just a few of these explanations as a result empirical analyses do not encompass a comprehensive set of variables that account for alternative explanations this study begins to fill this lacuna by specifying an empirical model that examines six explanations for local commitment towards sustainability local sustainability priorities regional governance climate protection networks interest group support local fiscal capacity and characteristics of the local governing institution moreover we use the designation of human and financial resources specifically for sustainability to operationalise commitment this is a more substantive measure than has been used in previous studies we accomplish

representation in municipal government municipal governments play a vital role in american democracy as well as in governments around the world despite this little is known about the degree to which cities are responsive to the views of their citizens in the past the unavailability of data on the policy preferences of citizens at the municipal level has limited scholars ability to study the responsiveness of municipal government we overcome this problem by using recent advances in opinion estimation to measure the mean policy conservatism in every u s city and town with a population above 20 000 people despite the supposition in the literature that municipal politics are non ideological we find that the policies enacted by cities across a range of policy areas correspond with the liberal conservative positions of their citizens on national policy issues in addition we consider the influence of institutions such as the presence of an elected mayor the popular initiative partisan elections term limits and at large elections our results show that these institutions have little consistent impact on policy responsiveness in municipal government these results demonstrate a robust role for citizen policy preferences in determining municipal policy outcomes but cast doubt on the hypothesis that simple institutional reforms enhance responsiveness in municipal governments