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.     

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.     

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.     

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。     

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.     

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.     

Earnings Differentials among Ethnic Groups in Canada: A Review of the Research

Canada has a large foreign-born population with an increasingly diverse ethnic profile. The 1986 Employment Equity Act designated ''visible minorities,'' Aboriginal peoples, women, and disabled persons as facing labor market disadvantages. This review of a growing body of research on ethnic earning differentials shows that the sizeable earnings shortfall of Aboriginal peoples could be ''explained'' by their lesser endowments of work-related characteristics. The high variance in discrimination estimates among men can be traced to the treatment of immigration effects, aggregation of diverse ethnic groups, and the choice of the non-discriminatory earnings norm.     

浅析现阶段我国少数民族本科预科教育的资源配置

民族本科预科教育是民族高等教育的一个特殊层次。在资源配置、培养目标、教学管理等方面均有其特殊性。人力资源配置、物力资源配置及财力资源的配置是资源配置的主要内容。现阶段我国少数民族本科预科教育的资源配置中,存在着教育资金来源单一,资金缺口较大;物力资源管理不善,效率低下;教师年龄结构、职称结构、学历结构不合理等问题。因而,应进一步优化少数民族本科预科教育的资源配置,使其得以健康发展。     

Interest Group Lobbying and the Delegation of Policy Authority

In a signalling model of lobbying the politicians' decision whether to delegate policy authority and an interest group's choice between lobbying politicians or bureaucrats are investigated. Only bureaucrats are able to assess policy-relevant information coming from the interest group, but their interests may differ from those of politicians. In equilibrium politicians weigh the benefits of an informed policy decision against bureaucratic drift. We obtain that delegation occurs only when the bureaucracy is not too much biased and when the stakes of the interest group are not too high . Still, politicians sometimes prefer a biased bureaucracy and the interest group to have a larger stake. The model also predicts that interest groups typically lobby politicians to further delegation.     

Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis

Michael Porter, the influential Harvard management guru, has promoted the idea that compliance with stricter environmental regulations can afford secondary benefits to firms through improved product design, innovation, corporate morale and in other ways. Once these secondary benefits are factored, the net cost of compliance is argued to be lower than conventionally thought and may even be negative. Whilst environmental economists have rejected the Porter Hypothesis as being based on excessively optimistic expectations of the likely size of such secondary benefits the underlying ideas do enjoy significant credence in the business community. In the context of a lobbying model of regulatory policy-making we argue that the EPA should change the way it conducts regulatory policy to take account of Porter's views – even if it knows those views to be misguided. The model serves to illustrate the more general point that fashions in management thinking can be expected to impact the optimal conduct of regulatory policy.     

新疆少数民族双语师资培训及双语教学工作的调研报告

2005年9月21日至10月20日间，新疆少数民族教师双语培训及双语教学工作情况调研小组，先后赴南北疆地区对中小学双语教学工作进行了调研，内容涉及学员HSK成绩的比较和汉语教学能力抽样调查的结果分析等。调研结果，一方面反映出新疆少数民族双语师资培训及双语教学工作取得的成绩和存在的问题；另一方面也反映出作者对如何更好地提高新疆少数民族双语教学的思考和建议。     

新疆少数民族就业困难群体成因分析——基于结构方程模型的视角

增加少数民族就业困难人员就业是改善新疆少数民族民生的一条重要途径。本文运用结构方程模型（SEM）对少数民族就业困难群体形成的原因进行了分析。结果显示：减轻家庭负担、减少对社保机构的依赖可以改善少数民族就业困难的状况。因而,应通过加大少数民族农村富余劳动力转移力度、加强其自身语言技能水平以及强化职业教育、培育少数民族特色产业等途径帮助少数民族群众就业。     

Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country*

For their empirical evaluation, several active research programs in economics and political science require data on ethnic groups across countries. Ethnic group, however, is a slippery concept. After addressing conceptual and practical obstacles, I present a list of 822 ethnic groups in 160 countries that made up at least 1 percent of the country population in the early 1990s. I compare a measure of ethnic fractionalization based on this list with the most commonly used measure. I also construct an index of cultural fractionalization that uses the structural distance between languages as a proxy for the cultural distance between groups in a country.     

Information Provision by Interest Groups

We investigate interest groups’ incentives to inform consumers about the damaging practices of firms and the impact such an IG has on firms’ technology choices. The IG aims to reduce the production of some bad, say pollution. It can at a cost investigate firms’ production practices and inform consumers about its findings. Since consumers care about the environment, revealing differences in pollution levels between firms leads to vertical product differentiation. The information, by shifting sales from ‘dirty’ towards ‘clean’ firms, reduces pollution. We show that the IG is most inclined to investigate firms in relatively competitive industries and that the threat of being unmasked as a polluter prompts dirty firms to adopt a clean technology.     

Entry Facilitation by Environmental Groups

We consider a model of vertical product differentiation where consumers care about the environmental damage their consumption causes. An environmental group is capable of increasing consumers’ environmental concern via a costly campaign. We show that the prospect of such a campaign can induce entry by a firm that is able to employ a cleaner technology than the one used by the incumbent. We further demonstrate that the subsequent competition can lead to an adverse effect on aggregate pollution, i.e. the decline in average industry pollution per product is offset by the increase in aggregate production.      

Modeling Effort and Lobbying in a Heterogeneous Common Pool Resource Setting

Extraction from a common pool resource (CPR), such as a fishery, can lead to socially inefficient and undesirable outcomes as a result of appropriation problems. Through regulation of the CPR, users may achieve a more profitable and socially efficient outcome. Feeny et al. (Land Econ 72(2):187–205, 1996) delve into some of the assumptions made by traditional CPR models and how use of those assumptions provides an incomplete framework to guide fishery policy. In the theoretical models we develop, we relax two of those assumptions: CPR users are homogeneous and are unable to create, or influence, management of the resource. We note a case where regulation of the individual user can induce others to harvest more, and relate this to the slippage effect concept. Regarding resource sustainability, we document situations where incentives exist for CPR users to lobby for tighter regulations and thus increase profits by limiting the tragedy of the commons influence.