What do outside experts bring to a committee? Evidence from the Bank of England

We test whether outside experts have information not available to insiders by usingthe voting record of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Memberswith more private information should vote more often against conventional wisdom,which we measure as the average belief of market economists about future interest rates. We find evidence that external members indeed have information notavailable to internals, but also use a quasi-natural experiment to show they mayexaggerate their expertise to obtain reappointment. This implies that an optimalcommittee, even outside monetary policy, should potentially include outsiders, butneeds to manage career concerns.

Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Perú

Electoral institutions that encourage citizens to vote are widely used around the world. Yet littleis known about the effects of such institutions on voter participation and the composition of the electorate.In this paper, I combine a field experiment with a change in Peruvian voting laws to identify theeffect of monetary (dis-)incentives on voting. Using the random variation in the fine for abstention andan objective measure of turnout at the individual level, I estimate the elasticity of voting with respectto cost to be -0.21. Consistent with the theoretical model presented, the reduction in turnout inducedby the reduction in the fine is driven by voters who (i) are in the center of the political spectrum, (ii)are less interested in politics, and (iii) hold less political information. However, voters who respondto changes in the cost of abstention do not have different preferences for policies than those who voteregardless of the cost. Further, involvement in politics, as measured by the decision to acquire politicalinformation, seems to be independent of the level of the fine. Additional results indicate that thereduction in the fine does not affect the incidence of vote buying, but increases the price paid for avote.

Positive contrast visualization of iron oxide-labeled stem cells using inversion-recovery with ON-resonant water suppression (IRON)

In proton magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metallic substances lead to magnetic field distortions that often result in signal voids in the adjacent anatomic structures. Thus, metallic objects and superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)-labeled cells appear as hypointense artifacts that obscure the underlying anatomy. The ability to illuminate these structures with positive contrast would enhance noninvasive MR tracking of cellular therapeutics. Therefore, an MRI methodology that selectively highlights areas of metallic objects has been developed. Inversion-recovery with ON-resonant water suppression (IRON) employs inversion of the magnetization in conjunction with a spectrally-selective on-resonant saturation prepulse. If imaging is performed after these prepulses, positive signal is obtained from off-resonant protons in close proximity to the metallic objects. The first successful use of IRON to produce positive contrast in areas of metallic spheres and SPIO-labeled stem cells in vitro and in vivo is presented.

Regulation and opportunism: How much activism do we need?

This paper analyzes the current trend towards firms self-regulation as opposed to the formal regulation of a negative externality. Firms respond to increasing activism in the market(conscious consumers that take into account the external effects of their purchase) by providing more socially responsible goods. However, because regulation is the outcome of a political process, an increase in activism might imply an inefficiently higher externality level. This may happen when a majority of non-activist consumers collectively free-ride on conscious consumers. By determining a softer than optimal regulation, they benefit from the behavior of firms, yet they have access to cheaper (although less efficient) goods.

Catalan government popularity. An example of economic effects on sub-national government support

The aim of this essay is to deal with economic voting in contexts ofmultilevel governance and to be a contribution to the debate on attribution of responsibilities in popularity functions literature. We use aggregate and individual data from Catalonia in order to analyse the relation between the state of the economy and the support for a sub-state government. The empirical analysis shows that the responsibility hypothesis works in regional governments without explicit macroeconomic competencies. We have also considered the evaluations of government performance on certain specific policies in order to clarify and determine the factors that drive Catalan government support. The article considers the implications of the findings for future attempts to model party support in a context of the European Union.

Physical considerations on discrepancies in target volume delineation.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To compare the delineations and interpretations of target volumes by physicians in different radio-oncology centers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eleven Swiss radio-oncology centers delineated volumes according to ICRU 50 recommendations for one prostate and one head and neck case. In order to evaluate the consistency of the volume delineations, the following parameters were determined: 1) the target volumes (GTV, CTV and manually expanded PTV) and their extensions in the three main axes and 2) the correlation of the volume delineated by each pair of centers using the ratio of the intersection to the union (called proximity index). RESULTS: The delineated prostate volume was 105+/-55cm(3) for the CTV and 218+/-44cm(3) for the PTV. The delineated head and neck volume was 46+/-15cm(3) for the GTV, 327+/-154cm(3) for the CTV and 528+/-106cm(3) for the PTV. The mean proximity index for the prostate case was 0.50+/-0.13 for the CTV and 0.57+/-0.11 for the PTV. The proximity index for the head and neck case was 0.45+/-0.09 for the GTV, 0.42+/-0.13 for the CTV and 0.59+/-0.06 for the PTV. CONCLUSIONS: Large discrepancies between all the delineated target volumes were observed. There was an inverse relationship between the CTV volume and the margin between CTV and PTV, leading to less discrepancies in the PTV than is the CTV delineations. There was more spread in the sagittal and frontal planes due to CT pixel anisotropy, which suggests that radiation oncologists should delineate the target volumes not only in the transverse plane, but also in the sagittal and frontal planes to improve the delineation by allowing a consistency check.

Policy making in divided government. A pivotal actors model with party discipline

This article presents a formal model of policy decision-making in an institutional framework of separation of powers in which the main actors are pivotal political parties with voting discipline. The basic model previously developed from pivotal politics theory for the analysis of the United States lawmaking is here modified to account for policy outcomes and institutional performances in other presidential regimes, especially in Latin America. Legislators' party indiscipline at voting and multi-partism appear as favorable conditions to reduce the size of the equilibrium set containing collectively inefficient outcomes, while a two-party system with strong party discipline is most prone to produce 'gridlock', that is, stability of socially inefficient policies. The article provides a framework for analysis which can induce significant revisions of empirical data, especially regarding the effects of situations of (newly defined) unified and divided government, different decision rules, the number of parties and their discipline. These implications should be testable and may inspire future analytical and empirical work.

Gender gaps in policy making: Evidence from direct democracy in Switzerland

In spite of increasing representation of women in politics, little is known about their impact onpolicies. Comparing outcomes of parliaments with different shares of female members does not identifytheir causal impact because of possible differences in the underlying electorate. This paper usesa unique data set on voting decisions to sheds new light on gender gaps in policy making. Ouranalysis focuses on Switzerland, where all citizens can directly decide on a broad range of policiesin referendums and initiatives. We show that there are large gender gaps in the areas of health,environmental protection, defense spending and welfare policy which typically persist even conditionalon socio-economic characteristics. We also find that female policy makers have a substantial effect onthe composition of public spending, but a small effect on the overall size of government.

What social security: Beveridgean or Bismarckian?

Why are Bismarckian social security systems associated with largerpublic pension expenditures, a smaller fraction of private pension andlower income in-equality than Beveridgean systems? These facts arepuzzling for political economy theories of social security whichpredict that Beveridgean systems, involving intra-generationalredistribution, should enjoy larger support among low-income people andthus be larger. This paper explains these features in a bidimensionalpolitical economy model. In an economy with three income groups,low-income support a large, redistributive system; middle-income favoran earning-related system, while high-income oppose any public system,since they have access to a superior saving technology, a privatesystem. We show that, if income inequality is large, the voting majorityof high-income and low-income supports a (small) Beveridgean system,and a large private pillar arises; the opposite occurs with lowinequality. Additionally, when the capital market provides higherreturns, a Beveridgean system is more likely to emerge.

How political parties, rather than member-states, are building the European Union

Political party formation and coalition building in the European Parliament is being a driving force for making governance of the highly pluralistic European Union relatively effective and consensual. In spite of successive enlargements and the very high number of electoral partiesobtaining representation in the European Union institutions, the number of effective European Political Groups in the European Parliament has decreased from the first direct election in 1979 to the fifth in 1999. The formal analysis of national party¹s voting power in different Europeanparty configurations can explain the incentives for national parties to join large European Political Groups instead of forming smaller nationalistic groupings. Empirical evidence shows increasing cohesion of European Political Groups and an increasing role of the European Parliament in EU inter-institutional decision making. As a consequence of this evolution, intergovernmentalism is being replaced with federalizing relations. The analysis can support positive expectations regarding the governability of the European Union after further enlargements provided that new member states have party systems fitting the European PoliticalGroups.

Government spending and re-election: Quasi-experimental evidence from Brazilian municipalities

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent politicalparties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our researchdesign exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around severalpopulation cutoffs over the period 1982-1985. We show that extra fiscal transfers resulted in a20% increase in local government spending per capita, and an increase of about 10 percentagepoints in the re-election probability of local incumbent parties. In the context of an agency modelof electoral accountability, as well as existing results indicating that the revenue jumps studiedhere had positive impacts on education outcomes and earnings, these results suggest that expectedelectoral rewards encouraged incumbents to spend additional funds in ways that were valued byvoters.

The survival of the welfare state

This paper provides an analytical characterization of Markov perfectequilibria in a politico-economic model with repeated voting, whereagents vote over distortionary income redistribution. The key featureof the theory is that the future constituency of redistributive policiesdepends positively on the current level of redistribution, since thisaffects both private investments and the future distribution of voters.Agents vote rationally and fullly anticipate the effects of their politicalchoice on both private incentives and future voting outcomes. The modelfeatures multiple equilibria. In "pro-welfare" equilibria, both welfarestate policies and their effects on distribution persist forever. In"anti-welfare equilibria", even a majority of beneficiaries ofredistributive policies vote strategically so as to induce the formationof a future majority that will vote for zero redistribution.

On the origins of electoral systems and political parties. The role of elections in multi-member districts

The old, understudied electoral system composed of multi-member districts, open ballot and plurality rule is presented as the most remote scene of the origin of both political parties and new electoral systems. A survey of the uses of this set of electoral rules in different parts of the world during remote and recent periods shows its wide spread. A model of voting by this electoral system demonstrates that, while it can produce varied and pluralistic representation, it also provides incentives to form factional or partisan candidacies. Famous negative reactions to the emergence of factions and political parties during the 18th and 19th centuries are reinterpreted in this context. Many electoral rules and procedures invented since the second half of the 19th century, including the Australian ballot, single-member districts, limited and cumulative ballots, and proportional representation rules, derived from the search to reduce the effects of the originating multi-member district system in favor of a single party sweep. The general relations between political parties and electoral systems are restated to account for the foundational stage here discussed.

Assesing the political viability of labour market reform: The case of employment protection

We analyze the political support for employment protection legislation.Unlike my previous work on the same topic, this paper pays a lot ofattention to the role of obsolescence in the growth process.In voting in favour of employment protection, incumbent employeestrade off lower living standards (because employment protectionmaintains workers in less productive activities) against longer jobduration. The support for employment protection will then depend onthe value of the latter relative to the cost of the former. Wehighlight two key deeterminants of this trade-off: first, the workers'bargaining power, second, the economy's growth rate-more preciselyits rate of creative destruction.

How enforcement institutions affect markets

In an experiment we study market outcomes under alternative incentive structures for third-party enforcers. Our transactions resemble an anonymous credit market where lenders can give loans and borrowers can repay them. When borrowers default, judges are free to enforce repayment but are themselves paid differently in each of three treatments. First, paying judges according to lenders votes maximizes surplus and the equality of earnings. In contrast, paying judges according to borrowers votes triggers insufficient enforcement, destroying the market and producing the lowest surplus and the most unequal distribution of earnings. Lastly, judges paid the average earnings of borrowers and lenders achieve results close to those based on lender voting. We employ a steps-of-reasoning argument to interpret the performances of different institutions. When voting and enforcement rights are allocated to different classes of actors, the difficulty of their task changes, and arguably as a consequence they focus on high or low surplus equilibria.