Rent seeking,federal mandates,and the quality of public education

Summary and Conclusions This paper has examined two opposing hypotheses purported to explain the imposition of mandates on lower level governmental activities. These hypotheses were labeled the spillovers and rent-seeking arguments. The first argument implied that consumers benefit from the intervention, while the latter one suggests that mandates increase the rents of the bureaucrats-producers. Evidence relating to the provision of public education was found to be more consistent with the rent-seeking thesis.Overall, the conclusions emerging from this study complement prevous works concerning the collusive nature of interactions between government regulators and private firms. There, the firms often use government to achieve what proves to be too costly via the market. There is no reason to believe that things would differ with regard to collusion between local units of government and those at higher levels. Given that bureaucrats, like all other individuals, are utility-maximizers, they too have an incentive to use government to increase their rents. Educational mandates appear to have served this role.     

Farmers' adoption of ecological practices: A systematic literature map

Understanding the factors associated with adoption of ecological farming practices is a well-established topic of interest to agricultural economists. As the transition to more sustainable agriculture has become a policy priority for the European Union, broad and balanced reviews of this literature are important. We develop a systematic map of quantitative observational studies which describes the ecological practice(s) adopted, the frequency of inclusion and significance of a range of independent variables, and how the dependent variable is measured. We also conduct a quality assessment. We find that while socio-demographic variables and farm structural variables are frequently included, they were insignificant more often than they were significant. For behavioural factors we find stronger evidence for the importance of cognitive or attitudinal variables compared to dispositional attitudinal variables. We also find a growing interest in social factors which will be valuable for researchers to explore further and reflect on the policy implications of our findings.     

Preliminary Evidence on the Allocation of U.S. Army Deaths from Operation Iraqi Freedom

Political influence on the use of the nation's war-making resources is considered in this study. Given the ‘tax-like’ consequences arising from military fatalities, rational political agents may engage in behavior that minimizes the negative electoral consequences resulting from the fatalities. An empirical model of the state-by-state allocation of U.S. Army fatalities resulting from Operation Iraqi Freedom is developed and tested. The results suggest that political influence originating in the White House is present in the allocation of fatalities from the military action in Iraq, but that Congressional effects, if any, are much weaker. In particular, population-adjusted fatality rates are lower in states that were highly contested ‘battleground’ states rich in Electoral College votes in the 2004 Presidential election.     

Recent evidence on the determinants of concert attendance for mid-size symphonies

This study provides some recent evidence regarding the determinants of aggregate annual attendance at the concert performances of mid-size symphonies. In data from the 2003, 2004, and 2005 seasons from fifty-two mid-size symphonies, attendance is found to be positively affected by quality of the symphony, number of concert performances, and possibly the proportion of the population with some college level education or better. Attendance is negatively affected by ticket price, proportion of the population with very high income levels, the number of competing symphonies in the region, and the square of the number of concert performances. The effect on attendance from age depends on the age cohort.     

A duopoly theory of government money production: The 1930s and 1940s

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Treasury and Fed possessed significant monetary powers. To explain the interaction of these agencies during this period, I develop a theory of money production which assumes each party is interested in increasing the seigniorage associated with their production. The theory implies that the two agencies will engage in specific forms of cooperation. An examination of monetary policy procedures in the 1930s and 1940s indicates that the cooperation view of the Fed and Treasury relationship has more explanatory power than traditional views.     

International patent analysis as a tool for corporate technology analysis and planning

New, techniques of international patent anabsis are illustrated and resultsfrom preliminary validity tests of these techniques are presented. Indicators of technological activity, technological significance and commercial potential are constructed, and used to analyze fiber-based opto-electronic couplers and monoclonal-antibody-based diagnostic kits at the levels o f the technology, nation and firm. The international patent indicators are found to be closely correlated with R&D expenditures, scientific publications and new product introductions. They also relate to these indicators in ways that moke sense as specified in simple regression models of the innovation process. Comparisons of patent analysis results with expert opinion (for two process technologies) reveal that technology-level analyzes conform quite well with expert opinion, but national - and firm-level analyes vary from a low to a modest correlation with expert opinion. The authors conclude that the techniques can provide important information for corporate technology management, but that studies of additional technologies and further validity tests are needed.     

Determining paths of innovation: The role of culture on the adoption on organic farming management

The aim of this paper is to understand whether national culture is linked with operative performance of organic agriculture. The ultimate goal is, indeed, to measure the impact of social change on technical innovation and sustainability issues. We built an econometric model where the impact of some of the six dimensions of national culture by Geert Hofstede is tested on inputs and outputs of organic production, on a country-based scale. We collected data about the evolution of organic agriculture through the last two decades, extracting data about 27 countries of the European Union from 2000 to 2017. We tested the dataset into two passages: we first employed a DEA model to assess efficiency of organic farming, and then we correlated results to Hofstede 6-D model of national culture. We observed the existence of a relationship between culture and innovation, explaining the importance of determined values in people's management within the firm. The operative performance of organic agriculture is linked to determined culturally influenced business values. We used efficiency results as variables for measuring innovation approach based on cultural models. It has been enhanced the relevance to the nexus innovation-culture approaching to one of the most innovation-resistant industrial sectors.