Public Choice

Interest in politics and the political process—topics that economists consider to be the purview of the sub-field of study known as public choice—appears to be as high as ever. This Special Issue aims to provide a collection of high-quality studies covering many of the varied topics traditionally investigated in the growing field of public choice economics. These include expressive and instrumental voting, checks and balances in the enforcement of rules, electoral disproportionality, foreign aid and political freedom, voting cycles, (in)stability of political ideology, federal spending on environmental goods, pork-barrel and general appropriations spending, politics and taxpayer funding for professional sports arenas, and political scandal and “friends-and-neighbors” voting in general elections. In bringing these topics together in one place, this Special Issue offers a mix of conceptual/formal and empirical studies in public choice economics

Coercion, vertical trust and entrepreneurism in bureaucracies: evidence from the Nazi Holocaust

Breton and Wintrobe (1982) develop a non-traditional (modern) model of bureaucratic management that is based on the notion of “vertical trust†– the notion that subordinates “trade services†that advance the goals of the bureau''s leadership in return for various “informal payments,†none of which are codified in formal contracts between the two sets of parties. Applying the model to the Nazi bureaucracy explains how Nazi functionaries, such as Adolf Eichmann, acted as bureaucratic entrepreneurs in accomplishing goals relating to “the Jewish question,†and ultimately “the Final Solution,†for their superiors, such as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler (Breton and Wintrobe, 1986). As an extension of prior research, the current study examines the hypothesis that the use these vertical trust relationships within the borders of their minor Axis partners (e.g., Hungary) worked more effectively for the Germans than coercion, which would have been required to a greater degree within the borders of occupied European countries (e.g., Holland). Specifically, our estimates suggest that, ceteris paribus, owing to their use of vertical trust networks the minor Axis countries each contributed about 152,000 more European Jews to the Nazi Holocaust apparatus than their German-occupied European country counterparts, wherein the Nazis relied more heavily on coercion.bureaucratic entrepreneurship, vertical trust networks, coercion, statistical decomposition tests

The Impact of Scholarship in Servant Leadership: Journals and Institutions

This study examines the impact of research published in the two academic journals in servant leadership – International Journal of Servant-Leadership and the Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice. Although various metrics suggest that the latter (and younger) journal has generally been more impactful, other metrics indicate that more “home run” research has thus far appeared in the former (and older) outlet. Analysis of the institution-based data reveals that affiliates of the Spears Center for Servant Leadership have produced the most impactful research in servant leadership, followed by those faculty and others at Regent University, Utah Valley University, Our Lady of the Lake University and Indiana Wesleyan University. Other prominent institutions in the servant leadership realm include Ashford University, Gonzaga University, the U.S. Army, Palm Beach Atlantic University and Southeastern University

Opportunism vs. Excellence in Academia: Quality Accreditation of Collegiate Business Schools

This study extends the literature on the (in)effectiveness of quality accreditation by examining how standards adopted by an accrediting or research agency, such as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB), can be manipulated by academic units, such as collegiate schools of business. We present a hierarchical differential game between a collegiate business school and its accrediting agency to advance the hypothesis that strategic or opportunistic behavior occurs where heterogeneity in academic achievement exists, as represented by an uneven distribution of academic achievement resulting either from the presence of both unproductive and highly productive faculty or periods of high academic productivity followed by other periods of low academic productivity. Statistical explorations utilizing data from senior management faculty affiliated with both the highest-ranking and lowest-ranking colleges and universities in the U.S. are suggestive of the presence of incentives facing some U.S. business schools to behave strategically or opportunistically in terms of quality accreditation

The Competitive Struggle to Win Tournaments: The Allies’ Race to Capture Adolf Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest

Tournament theory posits that there are situations where winning matters a lot and, as a result, agent rewards are not proportional to performance. According to tournament theorists, the large pay differentials that exist between organizational levels are intended to motivate agents to exert greater effort in an attempt to win the prize. Although a large corpus of literature on tournaments has emerged over time, little is known about the social dynamics involved in tournaments. This article addresses this gap through a historical narrative concerning how Allied forces in World War II competed to capture Adolf Hitler’s famed Bavarian reception house, known to the world as the Eagle’s Nest

The Economics of Illegitimate Activities: Further Evidence

ABSTRACT: Economists who have studied the economics of crime and other illegitimate activities have pointed out that criminals behave according to economic axioms, and tend to evaluate the marginal costs and marginal benefits of such activities. Criminals, as economic agents, consider the probability of capture, conviction, and penalization as costs of the process of criminal activity. These rational individuals often recognize that these probabilities are quite low, at least in many countries, and crime occurs as a result

Stock Market Prices and the Macroeconomics of Emerging Economies: the Case of India

This paper investigates the relationship between stock market capitalization  (stock prices) and selected macroeconomic variables in India.  The empirical results suggest that, in the long run, output growth and exchange rate are positively related to stock prices, while money supply exhibits a negative relationship to stock market capitalization. In the short run most of the variation in the stock market is captured by its own innovation, although the exchange rate, the price level and the interest rate seem to have some effect on the short-run stock capitalization

Ranking Economics Journals, Economics Departments, and Economists Using Teaching-Focused Research Productivity

This paper constructs new rankings of economics journals, economics departments, and economists that employ a measure of teaching-focused research productivity, an area of growing importance in recent years. The ranking methodologies presented here use information from articles that were published from 1991 through the early part of 2005 within the Journal of Economic Literature\u27 s economic education classifications (A200-A290). The Journal of Economic Literature tops the list of journals, followed by the Review of Economics and Statistics and the American Economic Review . Among the top institutions are Vanderbilt University, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin. Others that rank high here, such as Oberlin College and Denison University, do not often fare as well using methodologies that evaluate more traditional types of economics research. Finally, among the economists we find that John Siegfried, William Becker, and Michael Watts are ranked above other economists

Television Revenue and the Structure of Athletic Contests: The Case of the National Basketball Association

This study points out that changes in the format of the playoffs in the National Basketball Association have had the effect of lengthening the championship series and reducing the variance in the length of the series. These are valuable goals for the organization because they provide higher television ratings and revenues for the teams involved. Empirical evidence presented here suggests that viewership among 1.2 million additional households is at stake.Basketball; Television