Suchergebnisse

The government of the Republic of Korea has become concerned with reducing cigarette consumption, which historically has been very prevalent. This study contributes to the debate over cigarette policies in South Korea, with implications for other Asian countries with similar economic and cultural backgrounds. The authors estimate cigarette demand in South Korea over the period 1960–97, considering various government policies employed to reduce cigarette consumption. Results of the estimation suggest that taxation appears to be a viable means of reducing cigarette consumption, but methods to inform the public about the health hazards of smoking should be reconsidered and strengthened. (JEL H51, I18, L66)

Forty years ago, Herbert Simon reminded public managers of the limits of rationality, or the bounded rationality, of the individual decision maker. New analytical techniques from the sciences of complexity now provide a means to measure the complexity in the environment of public managers using actual organizational data. Time series analysis is used to examine data from the external environment of two urban police divisions. Results of the analysis reveal that the complexities of the environment of public organizations may serve as an inhibition to rational decision making that extends beyond the limits of the individual proposed by Simon.

Causes of variation in public opinion toward environmental issues were examined through aggregate level analysis of data from National Opinion Research Center and Roper Center for Public Opinion Research annual surveys, 1973-1991. Support for spending on environmental issues declined from 1973 through the decade, increased slightly in the early 1980s, stablized, then increased gradually through the late 1980s. From 1989-1993, environmental spending declined slightly. Analysis revealed a positive association between real per capita income & support for environmental policy spending. Media concern for environmental issues was also positively associated with environmental spending. The relationship between environmental efforts & the business cycle is discussed. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 32 References. Adapted from the source document.

V. O. Key's reward-punishment model has long dominated scholarly thinking about the political economy of party support. The model's popularity persists despite anomalous empirical evidence and challenges by issue-priority theorists who criticize the model for ignoring differences in the policy choices offered by competing parties. This paper argues that the reward-punishment and issue-priority perspectives are encompassed by utility function models of voter decision-making. Such models account for party support dynamics that are perverse according to reward-punishment assumptions. They also provide a theoretical rationale for specifying lagged economic effects in party support functions, while suggesting difficulties in doing so. The performance of utility function models is illustrated under varying assumptions about economic conditions and a voter's knowledge of them.

How do firms allocate their lobbying resources among their political goals? The authors approach this question using a game-theoretic model that integrates three concepts from the lobbying literature: the distinction between private and collective rents, the competition for a rent, and the impacts of political institutions. The model indicates how competition and political institutions affect lobbying expenditures and expected net returns for private and collective lobbying. The outcomes predicted differ with those of past formal models and produce the counterintuitive expectation that competition typically reduces expenditures. The authors test the model's predictions by examining the lobbying decisions of sixty-two firms.