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Working Paper Fiscal Illusion as an Explanation of Institutional Choice in a Federation(1978) West, E. G.; Winer, Stanley L."The fiscal 'illusion' hypothesis may be interpreted, following West and Winer (1978), as an assertion that utility maximizing public managers will invest resources to induce underestimation of tax-prices. They do so in order to maximize the size of government, subject to the controlling influence of the (median) voter under majority rule. Unfortunately for the voter, they will in general succeed if information about government activity is costly to acquire, and if political competition is imperfect. In this note, we use the fiscal illusion hypothesis to explain the choice of institutional arrangements in certain federations since 1945. In particular, we are interested in the growth of conditional or tied grants from federal to state or provincial governments."Journal Article Khumbu: Country of the Sherpas(1967) Willan, R.G.M."For many years the highest mountain in the world remained unconquered. During the 1920s and 1930s numerous expeditions attempted to climb the huge peak called Mount Everest by English geographers but without success; at last in 1953 the news was flashed to the world that the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had set foot on the summit. Long before this, however, members of the various climbing expeditions in the Himalayas had become acquainted with the Sherpas who live in the high country below Everest, a people of Tibetan origin who are believed to have crossed the high passes of the Himalayas into the region now known as Khumbu about two centuries ago."Working Paper Strategy and the Structure of Interdependent Decision-Making Mechanisms(1967) Ostrom, ElinorFrom p. 54: The paradigm presented ... begins to sketch in the type of analysis that one could undertake when examining the affect of decision-making structures on individual behavior. It is hoped that the paradigm will be of help in stimulating further theoretical and empirical work on the relation between the structure of decision-making mechanisms and the strategies of individuals employ when attempting to reach solutions to problems through the utilization of different structures."Working Paper Population Pressure and Fertility Changes in Costa Rica, 1906-1970(1976) Binger, Brian R.; Hoffman, Elizabeth; Newell, William H."The demographic history of Costa Rica in the twentieth century is examined in the context of a model of dynamic adjustment to changing child survival probabilities and micro-level population pressure. Micro-level population pressure is viewed as resulting from a couple having children beyond its current optimal family size, given current prices and its income. Cantonal regression analyses for the time periods, 1927-1950, 1951-1953 to 1961-1963, and 1961-1963 to 1970 lend support to the hypothesis that the secular fertility decline in Costa Rica is a dynamic adjustment to high completed family size and increasing child survival probabilities."Conference Paper The Fragmentation of Public Policy Analysis: The Example of U.S. Regulatory Policy(1976) Dubnick, Melvin J."This paper will concentrate on the change toward a public policy focus as it is manifested in the study of economic regulation. The state of analysis in the issue-area is examined and related to the fragmented condition of public policy analysis in general. Finally, consideration is given to the direction students of government regulation should take in meeting the challenge of policy analysis. What results is an agenda for research which is as much a personal statement of objectives for this writer as it is a plea for more work in this area by those interested in the policy sciences."Thesis or Dissertation The Management of Social Stability: A Political Ethnography of the Hutterites of North America(1969) Baden, John"This is a study of the attempts of members of a small society, the Hutterians, to perpetuate their social and cultural systems in a setting they perceive as fundamentally alien and hostile. Collectively, the members of this group seek to be independent of the control of outsiders although perfect autonomy and self-sufficiency are, of course, precluded. The group stands inextricably involved in the political and economic affairs of the larger society."Working Paper A Model of the Congressional Committee Assignment Process: Constrained Maximization in an Institutional Setting(1973) Shepsle, Kenneth A."The substantive focus of this paper is an institutionalized process in the U.S. House of Representatives known as the committee assignment process. There is, however, a wider class of problems of which this is a special case, namely the classification and selection of personnel. After reviewing the temporal sequence of events that constitute the committee assignment process, the principal actors and their goals are identified. This permits the process to be characterized by self-interested actors engaging in goal-seeking behavior. Institutional constraints, a consequence of formal rules and scarcity, restrict the form that goal-seeking takes. With the specification of goals and constraints the entire process is formalized as a special kind of linear programming problem, called (naturally enough) the assignment problem. Given this formal structure a number of theoretical properties are established in an effort to understand the operating characteristics of this important institutional process."Working Paper Some Problems in Doing Political Theory: A Response to Golembiewski's 'Critique'(1977) Ostrom, Vincent"Robert T. Golembiewski's 'A Critique of 'Democratic Administration' and Its Supporting Ideation' serves a useful purpose. It challenges some assumptions of public choice theory as well as some of my arguments about democratic administration as an alternative to bureaucratic administration. Golembiewski's 'Critique' is representative of various criticisms that have been made (Heikoff, 1973; Neiman, 1975; Self, 1975). However, it is so discursive that an effort to respond to each point is not feasible in this essay. I shall respond only to major issues. I see no point in discoursing on the general virtues and vices of market economies or on 'cycles of governance' since these have not been the focus of my inquiries. "Several issues are raised that are central to the task of doing political theory. These include the general issue of methodological individualism, the related assumptions about self-interest and preference orderings, and the place of values, efficiency, and Pareto optimality. These issues are, in turn, imbedded in a more general problem: that of using language as a tool for theoretical inquiry and testing the usefulness of different conceptual languages for generating inferences and researchable hypotheses. "The language problem gives rise to a serious potential for misunderstanding. Many conclusions that Golembiewski attributes to me, for example, are not my conclusions and do not follow from the conceptual language that I use. In translating some of my arguments into his language, Golembiewski says something different than I have said. In some cases the virtual antithesis is asserted. In other cases, targets of convenience in public choice theory or economic theory more generally are used to condemn by association without critically examining the relevant issues in my own work. These problems will become apparent in the course of this essay. Before turning to some methodological issues in doing political theory, I need first to establish the context for Golembiewski's 'Critique' and my response."Working Paper Organization(1969) Ostrom, Vincent"Every development--street sweeping, production of fertilizers, irrigation works, the development of new seed stocks--has a component to it that is concerned with how the activities of people are organized in relation to another. Our effort will be to clarify the essential structure of relationships that apply to institutions of all types and to indicates some of the variations that apply to institutions of different types. However, our focus will be upon the practical implications that are relevant to the man of action who is concerned with knowing what he is doing. As a result, we shall focus upon those who are attempting to do something which involves the activities of many other persons. We shall refer broadly to such individuals as organizers or entrepreneurs. Business entrepreneurs are only one type of organizer. In speaking of organizers we shall refer to all of those who struggle with the practical problems of how to organize the activities of the diverse individuals who become associated with the operation of diverse undertakings or enterprises. Enterprises may be organized as a family endeavour, individual proprietorship, business corporation or stock company, cooperative society, public enterprise, government agency, political party, outlaw society, or revolutionary group. In the rare case, individuals may be concerned with the organization of a nation-state or an international organization."Journal Article American Institutions and Ecological Ideals: Scientific and Literary Views of our Expansionary Life-style are Converging(1970) Marx, Leo"The chief question before us, then, is this: What are the prospects, given the character of America's dominant institutions, for the fulfillment of this ecological ideal? But first, what is the significance of the current 'environmental crusade'? Why should we be skeptical about its efficacy? How shall we account for the curious response of the scientific community? To answer these questions I will attempt to characterize certain of our key institutions from an ecological perspective. I want to suggest the striking convergence of the scientific and the literary criticism of our national life-style. In conclusion I will suggest a few responses to the ecological crisis indicated by that scientific-literary critique."
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