A Pie Allocation Among Sharing Groups

This paper deals with a pie allocation problem to users, who are divided intosharing groups, that are not necessarily disjoint. The pie is allocated among the groups, rather than the users. The portion of a sharing group is a public good for its members, that is, all of them can enjoy it. A non-cooperative game for allocating the pie and a special equilibrium outcome,strongly disappointment-free allocation, are defined. We prove the existence of a unique such allocation and show that it coincides with the Nash solution of the related bargaining problem.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C70, C71, C72 and C78.     

Lobbying and welfare

The paper shows that the cost of any distortion, arising without the aid of resource-using lobbying addressed to having the distortion implemented, is not necessarily less than the cost of the same distortion arising with the aid of such lobbying. This refutation of the prevalent assertions to the contrary reflects the second-best nature of the problem at hand.     

Lobbying and discretion

When interest groups compete to influence legislators, the resulting legislation is often vague, and thus obliges the groups to continue their fight in the executive. On its face, this seems inefficient—at least from the point of view of the groups. We explore this intuition in a model of “nested lobbying” in which interest groups first compete to influence a legislative agenda setter, then compete to influence legislative votes over the resulting agenda. If the resulting legislation grants discretion to the executive, the final prize is allocated in yet one more contest in the bureaucracy. We find that when the status quo is non-discretionary, competition over the agenda never results in an agenda that includes discretion. Surprisingly, however, a discretionary status quo can stand with probability 1 if the preferences of the bureaucracy, the legislature, and the agenda setter are arranged in an “iron triangle”. Specifically, the bureaucracy and agenda setter must be biased in favor of one group, while the legislature is biased in favor of the other.     

The Allocation of German Aid: Self‐interest and Government Ideology

We investigate the importance of geo‐strategic and commercial motives for the allocation of German aid to 138 countries over the 1973–2010 period. We find that geo‐strategic and commercial motives matter. When we relate them to the political color of the German government in general, and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office in particular, we find their importance to be at least as strong under the socialist leadership. Socialist leadership decreases the amount of aid commitments, controlled for other factors.     

Protectionist Lobbying and Strategic Investment

Why are some uncompetitive industry sectors so effective in lobbying for greater protection and support? This paper attempts to explain the lobbying success of these industries in terms of the strategic role of investment in technology as a credible commitment device. By eschewing potentially profitable investment opportunities firms credibly signal to the government that the cost of a tariff reduction will be substantial. This enables the firms to lobby more effectively for policy concessions. Political considerations may therefore provide a significant incentive for firms to reject investment in newer technologies, even when these lower production costs.     

Lobbying and the power of multinational firms

Can multinational firms exert more power than national firms by influencing politics through lobbying? To answer this question, we analyze the extent of national environmental regulation when policy is determined in a lobbying game between a government and a firm. We compare the resulting equilibrium regulation levels, outputs and welfare in a game with a multinational firm with those in an otherwise identical game with a national firm. For low transportation costs, output and pollution of a national firm are always as least as high as for a multinational; this changes for high transportation costs and intermediate damage parameters. When there is no lobbying, welfare levels are always higher with multinationals than with national firms. However, the existence of lobbying may reverse this ordering.     

云南扶持人口较少民族文化教育发展调查研究

扶持人口较少民族文化教育发展,是云南省推动民族团结进步边疆繁荣稳定示范区建设的重要举措,是与全国一道全面建成小康社会的重要保障。通过调研云南扶持人口较少民族文化教育发展的主要做法及成效,分析存在的问题及原因,提出推进的对策及建议。     

Endogenous Free Trade Agreements and Foreign Lobbying

This paper assesses the political viability of free trade agreements (FTAs) in the presence of lobbying by organized foreign interest groups. The assessment is based on a model in which external tariffs and the decision to form an FTA are endogenously determined. The findings demonstrate that, in the presence of an organized lobby group in a prospective partner country, an FTA may initiate an increase in the level of protection against imports from third countries and impede trade with non‐member countries. Further, this study finds that a foreign lobby may encourage the local government to enter a welfare‐reducing trade‐diverting FTA. Finally, this paper shows that an FTA increases the lobbying power of the organized lobby groups of the member countries, which can potentially obstruct the viability of welfare‐improving multilateral trade liberalization.     

Modelling the Allocation of Australian Bilaterial Aid: A Two-Part Sample Selection Approach*

This paper focuses on the allocation of Australian bilateral aid to developing countries. It simultaneously models the determination of potential recipients' eligibility for Australian aid and the amounts of aid that eligible countries receive. A variant of the econometric technique developed by Lee and Maddala (1985) is utilized. The results obtained indicate that the decisions underlying the allocation of Australian bilateral aid generally seem consistent with the humanitarian, commercial, political and strategic motives underlying the aid program as a whole.     

Institutions,Lobbying, and Economic Performance

We investigate whether the impact of institutions depends not just on their current state but also on how they came to be. In particular, we hypothesize that while economic freedom that emerges spontaneously may be growth promoting, economic freedom that emerges as a result of costly lobbying efforts may be less fruitful. In an extreme case, costly lobbying efforts may even negate the growth‐enhancing effect of economic freedom. To the extent that lobbying efforts constitute an opportunity cost of resources diverted away from investment and production, our hypothesis also implies that greater the opportunity cost of lobbying, the more efficient is the institutional environment. Panel data analysis reveals the expected positive relation between economic freedom and growth, and consistent with our hypothesis, the findings indicate that the impact of economic freedom on growth does indeed diminish as lobbying efforts increase. In addition, we find that lobbying is more harmful to growth at greater levels of economic freedom.     

Lobbying and innovation in the European Union

Aside from anecdotal evidence, lobbying activities and the role of vested interests in the EU have not been scrutinized. This article attempts to cast focus on the relationship between lobbying and aspects of innovation in the EU. The modest performance of the EU compared to the innovation frontier has been attributed to an array of factors, one of which is the adverse effect of vested interests. The lack of new, innovative enterprises has been identified as a decisive factor behind the productivity stagnation and lobbying by incumbents poses as a credible culprit. In this article, I create a novel firm-level database through the cross-fertilization of data from the growing Transparency Register (EC and EP), AMADEUS (BvD), the OECD, Eurostat, and the European Commission in order to address the complex relationship between vested interests, innovation, and competition. The preliminary findings indicate that more R&D intensive firms tend to spend significantly larger amount of funds on lobbying, primarily competing for EU grants and government procurement. Using data for country-sector concentration, I find that the relationship is stronger in the presence of low competition. Despite the improvements required in the documentation of lobbying activities, these results provide preliminary tangible evidence on the effect of vested interests on innovation performance.     

Lobbying and Welfare in a Representative Democracy

This paper studies the impact of lobbying on political competition and policy outcomes in a framework which integrates the citizen–candidate model of representative democracy with the menu-auction model of lobbying. Positive and normative issues are analysed. On the positive side, lobbying need have little or no effect on policy outcomes because voters can restrict the influence of lobbyists by supporting candidates with offsetting policy preferences. On the normative side, coordination failure among lobbyists can result in Pareto inefficient policy choices. In addition, by creating rents to holding office, lobbying can lead to "excessive" entry into electoral competition.     

高校民族教学存在的问题及建议

教育水平的高低影响着一个民族和地区的发展。高校教学水平又间接影响着在校大学生的就业前景。近年来，新疆少数民族教学得到了较大的发展，但仍存在一些问题。新疆高校进行民族教学改革成为目前政府、教育部门和高校教师的重要任务。可以通过加强民族教师队伍建设、充分发挥班主任及辅导员对提高民族大学生综合素质的作用以及加强外语和汉语教学改革等举措促进新疆高校民族教学的进一步发展。     

Trade,Transboundary Pollution,and Foreign Lobbying

In this paper, we explore the use of trade policy in addressing transboundary stock pollution problems such as acid rain and water pollution. We show that a tariff determined by the current level of accumulated pollution can induce the time path of emissions optimal for the downstream (polluted) country. But if the upstream (polluting) country can lobby the downstream government to impose lower tariffs, distortions brought by corruption and foreign lobbying lead to a rise in the upstream country’s social welfare, and to a decrease in social welfare in the downstream country. Thus, the usefulness of trade policy as a tool for encouraging cooperation and internalizing transboundary externalities depends critically on the degree of governments’ susceptibility to foreign political influence.     

Competitive Lobbying and Supermajorities in a Majority-rule Institution

This paper presents a complete information model of competitive lobbying in a majority‐rule institution where lobbying consists of providing politically‐valuable resources to legislators. Legislators have three roles. First, they act as allies or opponents in deciding whether to consider a lobbyist's offer. Second, they act as agenda‐setters in deciding whether to bring a policy alternative to a vote. Third, they vote on the agenda. The stationary equilibria include minimal majorities and supermajorities and involve unilateral, counteractive and preemptive lobbying. Supermajorities are recruited either to influence agenda formation or to preempt the opposing lobbyist.     

Regional Integration and Lobbying for Tariffs Against Nonmembers

We study the impact of regional trading arrangements (RIAs) on tariff policy toward nonmembers in a three-good, three-country political economy model. Comparing free-trade areas (FTAs) with and without rules of origin and customs unions (CUs) with varying degrees of economic and political integration, we show how increasingly deep integration can lead to rising protection against nonmember imports. Other differences between FTAs and CUs, like the extent of free-riding in a CU and any component of a CU's tariff designed to improve the members' terms of trade, are not explicitly accounted for. Nevertheless, the results suggest that FTAs are likely to welfare dominate CUs.     

Lobbying and the international fight against tax havens

Despite a variety of measures taken by high‐tax countries, the international fight against tax havens so far remains rather ineffective. This paper introduces offshore lobbying as a possible explanation for this observation. The author analyzes the international fight against tax havens in a two‐country model, in which the onshore country exerts pressure on domestic profit‐shifting firms and the tax haven's government lobbies against this measure. In this framework, he finds that pressure and lobbying are strategic substitutes and that there is an extensive margin incentive for offshore lobbying. Furthermore, when starting at initially high costs for profit shifting, a reduction in these costs leads to fewer profit‐shifting firms. Finally, when allowing for a second low‐tax jurisdiction, the overall level of lobbying increases, but less than proportionally.     

Globalization, Lobbying, and International Environmental Governance

Globalization may require supranational coordination of environmental policies to prevent strategic policy competition weakening environmental standards. This raises concerns about a democratic deficit at the supranational level, and the possibility of capture by special interest groups. The authors develop a model in which environmental policy can be set at the national or supranational level. Governments at each level act in the interests of the group they represent, and interest groups lobby to influence the probability of getting their type of government elected. Using asymmetries in lobbying costs, the authors analyze the effects of a democratic deficit and differential access to influence by different interest groups on the welfare of groups and nations. The paper shows: (i) asymmetries may have unexpected effects; (ii) asymmetries have greater effect when policy is set at the national rather than supranational level; and (iii) despite asymmetries groups and nations are better off when policy is coordinated at the supranational level.