Competitive Grants and the Funding of Agricultural Research in the United States

Efforts to improve public agricultural research efficiency include calls to increase use of competitive grants. This paper empirically assesses different instruments the USDA uses to fund state-level research. Compared with other instruments, competitive grants focus more on basic research and are concentrated among fewer states. Model results suggest that top-ranked biology and agricultural science programs were strong determinants of states' shares of competitive grants. Other significant factors were agricultural sector size and number of agricultural scientists. USDA-funded state-level research focus did not change significantly because competitive grants comprised only 15% of these funds and other instruments counteracted their influence.     

Rethinking the liquidity puzzle: Application of a new measure of the economic money stock

Historically, attempts to solve the liquidity puzzle focus on narrowly defined monetary aggregates, such as non-borrowed reserves, the monetary base, or M1. Many of these efforts fail to find a short-term negative correlation between interest rates and monetary policy innovations. More recent research uses sophisticated macroeconomic and econometric modeling. However, little research has investigated the role measurement error plays in the liquidity puzzle, since in nearly every case, work investigating the liquidity puzzle has used one of the official monetary aggregates, which have been shown to exhibit significant measurement error. In this paper, we examine the role that measurement error plays in the liquidity puzzle by (i) providing a theoretical framework explaining how the official simple-sum methodology can lead to a liquidity puzzle, and (ii) testing for the liquidity effect by estimating an unrestricted VAR.     

Marginalised voices: resisting the privatisation of council housing in Glasgow

This paper explores the opposition to housing stock transfer in Glasgow in the early 1990s. Taking the position of anti-transfer campaigners, it argues that transfer can be interpreted as a form of 'privatisation' involving a profound restructuring in the role of the state in a key heartland area of welfare provision. Using interviews from housing campaigners in Glasgow, the paper argues that the much-heralded rhetoric about housing stock transfer as promoting tenant choice is highly contentious and misleading. The paper includes by highlighting that dispite the move to transfer in Glasgow, there remains a significant campaign against transfer in other parts of the UK.     

The President Versus the Senate: Appointments in the American System of Separated Powers and the Federal Reserve

For politicians, appointments are an instrument of policy influence.By installing their representatives in an institution, politicianscan count on policy influence for the duration of their appointees'terms. Given the stakes, the occasional controversy regardingnominees is understandable. On the whole, however, nominationsare not controversial; in fact, Senate confirmation votes areoften unanimous. Nevertheless, the Senate can have substantialinfluence in the appointment process. Using a formal model,this article examines how the president and Senate strategicallybargain with one another within the confines of the FederalReserve appointment process to influence monetary policy. Witha new way to estimate monetary policy preferences, this articleshows empirically that policy influence occurs via appointments.     

Victoria E. Dye. All Aboard for Santa Fe: Railway Promotion of the Southwest, 1890s to 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. xi + 163 pp. ISBN 0-8263-3657-4, $24.95 (cloth).

All Aboard covers the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe (AT&SF)railroad’s attempts to promote tourism in the Southwest.The emphasis is on New Mexico, particularly Santa Fe and, asa separate narrative, Albuquerque. Interestingly, the AT&SFdid not pass through Santa Fe. In the 1870s, when the companyplanned a route from Dodge City, Kansas, to Colorado, whereabundant fuel could be loaded, to New Mexico then to California,the foothill town of     

THE NORTH AMERICAN BLACKOUT AND ELECTRICITY POLICY: ALTERNATIVES TO TRANSMISSION CONSTRUCTION

It is time to stop regulating the electricity industry as if it were a natural monopoly. Technology has moved on and competition must not be discouraged by regulation. Competition is not only necessary for lower prices to consumers: the particular technological developments that have taken place in recent years mean that competition can diversify supply sources and contribute to increased security of supply.     

Labour utilisation and industrial relations at Scott-Lithgow 1967–87

This article, a case study of a Scottish shipbuilding and offshore construction company, examines the impact of management style and organisational structure on labour utilisation and industrial relations