The Law of 1/n Revisited: Distributive Politics,Legislature Size,and the Costs of Collective Action

The foundational model of distributive politics predicts a positive relationship between the number of legislative districts and the level of inefficiency of projects approved by the legislature—Weingast, Shepsle, and Johnsen's “Law of 1/n.” This relationship has been tested extensively in the empirical literature, with mixed results. This article presents a model wherein passing the omnibus legislation typical of distributive politics is a costly process. The model predicts a nonlinear relationship between legislature size and spending as increasing the size of the legislature also increases the costs of collective action. Results from an empirical exercise based on U.S. state legislatures (1962–2014) are consistent with the proposed model, showing a 1/n effect which diminishes at the margin as the legislature's size increases, especially in the lower chamber.     

The visible hand: the role of government in China’s long-awaited industrial revolution

China is undergoing its long-awaited industrial revolution. There is no shortage of commentary and opinion on this dramatic period, but few have attempted to provide a coherent, in-depth, political-economic framework that explains the fundamental mechanisms behind China’s rapid industrialization. This article reviews the Embryonic Economic Development theory put forth by Wen (2016a). This article reviews the Embryonic Economic Development theory put forth by Wen . It illuminates the critical sequence of developmental stages since the reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping in 1978: namely, small-scale commercialized agricultural production, proto-industrialization in the countryside, a formal industrial revolution based on mass production of labor-intensive light consumer goods, a sustainable ‘industrial trinity’ boom in energy/motive power/infrastructure, and a second industrial revolution involving the mass production of heavy industrial goods. This developmental sequence follows essentially the same pattern as Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution, despite sharp differences in political and institutional conditions. One of the key conclusions exemplified by China’s economic rise is that the extent of industrialization is limited by the extent of the market. One of the key strategies behind the creation and nurturing of a continually growing market in China is based on this premise: The free market is a public good that is very costly for nations to create and support. Market creation requires a powerful ‘mercantilist’ state and the correct sequence of developmental stages; China has been successfully accomplishing its industrialization through these stages, backed by measured, targeted reforms and direct participation from its central and local governments.     

Extending the BG/NBD: A simple model of purchases and complaints

Extant customer-base models like the beta geometric/negative binomial distribution (BG/NBD) predict future purchasing based on customers' observed purchase history. We extend the BG/NBD by adding an important non-transactional element that also drives future purchases: complaint history. Our model retains several desirable properties of the BG/NBD: it can be implemented in readily available software, and estimation requires only customer-specific statistics, rather than detailed transaction-sequence data. The likelihood function is closed-form, and managerially relevant metrics are obtained by drawing from beta and gamma densities and transforming these draws to a sample average. Based on more than two years of individual-level data from a major U.S. internet and catalog retailer, our model with complaints outperforms both the original BG/NBD and a modified version. Even though complaints are rare and non-transactional events, they lead to different substantive insights about customer purchasing and drop-out: customers purchase faster but also drop out much faster. Furthermore, there is more heterogeneity in drop-out rates following a purchase than a complaint.     

Older adult pedestrian injuries in the United States: causes and contributing circumstances

As the US population ages, more older adults will face transportation and mobility challenges. This study examines the characteristics and contributing circumstances of nonfatal older adult pedestrian injuries. Data were obtained from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Programme (NEISS-AIP) for the years 2001 through 2006. Cases included persons aged 65 years and older who were nonfatally injured on a public roadway. The results indicated that on average, an estimated 52,482 older adults were treated in emergency departments each year for nonfatal pedestrian injuries. Falling and being hit by a motor vehicle were the leading mechanisms of injury, resulting in 77.5% and 15.0% of older adult pedestrian injuries, respectively. More than 9000 older pedestrian fall-related injuries each year involved a kerb. It is concluded that the growth in the older adult population could add to the overall burden of these nonfatal pedestrian injuries. Making transportation and mobility improvements, including environmental modifications, is important for preventing these injuries.     

A new release of the ASTM CHETAH program for hazard evaluation: Versions for mainframe and personal computer

CHETAH, which stands for the Chemical Thermodynamic and Energy Release Program, was introduced in 1974. Since then, the CHETAH program has been widely used in the chemical industry for hazard evaluation. Although its chief aim is to predict deflagration/detonation potential from molecular structure, it can also be used to estimate heats of reaction, heat capacities, and entropies. One of the limitations of the original program was its rigid, punched card oriented format for data input and the lack of an overall hazard rating derived from the several hazard criteria. A new release of this program alleviates these shortcomings and includes other improvements. The main features of the new release are: 1) a totally interactive front end, 2) an interpreter subroutine which uses sophisticated pattern recognition techniques to combine the four hazard criteria into an overall hazard rating, 3) recognition of certain atomic groupings which are known to be sensitive, 4) correct handling of the symmetry number, and 5) an updated data bank. One of the most important features of this release is its availability in an IBM PC compatible version, making the program accessible to more users.     

Regulating,joint bargaining,and the demise of precedent

Recent decades have seen a fundamental shift in the nature of economic regulation in the United States. Unauthorized by congress, and largely unnoted in legal and academic circles, regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission have changed the regulatory process by linking otherwise unrelated regulatory issues. Examples include tying merger approval to firm commitments to engage in conceptually unrelated build‐outs and other projects of political importance. This linking of issues has several effects, the most prominent being (a) tying regulatory issues changes the outcomes obtained, plausibly in predictable ways; (b) tying in some circumstances allows regulators to extend their authority to issues for which they have little or no legal authority; and (c) tied regulatory bargaining fails to produce valid legal precedent for firm decision making. We provide an analysis of these conclusions by examining the increasing use of consent decrees, voluntary merger commitments, and merger conditions by the Federal Communications Commission, referencing our discussion with a simple model of joint bargaining applicable to regulatory practice.