Bureaucratic Provision: Influencing vs. Lying

In this paper a public bureau can extract surplus value from the services it provides not only by misrepresenting its production costs to its oversight committee but also by influencing the perceptions of the legislative body such as the parliament or the congress and the public at large by costly argumentation. By juxtaposing the bureau's ability to "influence" with its ability to misreport or "lie", I examine the impact influencing might have on the bureau's incentives to lie and on the efficiency of bureaucratic provision. I find that a truth-telling equilibrium could exist where the bureau's ability to influence would deter it from lying and the level of bureaucratic provision would be efficient. However, there could also be an equilibrium where the bureau would lie in which case there would be either over-production or under-production. This suggests that even when the bureau only cares about extracting the surplus value of its production, there could still be over-production simply due to the bureau's ability to distort cost informationBureaucracy, Influence, Truth-Telling

Persuasion as a Contest

From marketing and advertising to political campaigning and court proceedings, contending parties expend resources to persuade an audience of the correctness of their view. We examine how the probability of persuading the audience depends on the resources expended by the parties, so that persuasion can be modelled as a contest. We use a Bayesian approach whereby the audience makes inferences solely based on the evidence presented to them. The evidence is produced by the resources expended by the contending parties. We find conditions on evidence production and likelihood functions that yield the well-known additive contest success functions, including the logit function as well as the one used in all-pay auctions. We also find conditions that produce a "difference" functional form. In all cases, there are three main determinants of which side the audience chooses: (i) the truth and other objective parameters of the environment; (ii) the biases of the audience as distilled in their priors and the likelihood function employed; and (iii) the resources expended by the parties interested in persuading the audience.Rent-seeking; Advertising; Litigation; Political campaigning; Property rights

Persuasion as a Contest

From marketing and advertising to political campaigning and court proceedings, contending parties expend resources to persuade an audience of the correctness of their view. We examine how the probability of persuading the audience depends on the resources expended by the parties, so that persuasion can be modelled as a contest. We use a Bayesian approach whereby the audience makes inferences solely based on the evidence presented to them. The evidence is produced by the resources expended by the contending parties. We find conditions on evidence production and likelihood functions that yield the well-known additive contest success functions, including the logit function as well as the one used in all-pay auctions. We also find conditions that produce a “difference” functional form. In all cases, there are three main determinants of which side the audience chooses: (i) the truth and other objective parameters of the environment; (ii) the biases of the audience as distilled in their priors and the likelihood function employed ; and (iii) the resources expended by the parties interested in persuading the audience.rent-seeking, advertising, litigation, political campaigning, property rights

Use of traditional and complementary medicine by ethnic Indian women living with polycystic ovary syndrome: a global survey

Background: Traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM) is commonly used by those living with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) but little is known about the use of TCIM such as yoga and Ayurveda in ethnic Indian women with PCOS living worldwide. This survey aimed to explore the prevalence and types of TCIM used and in particular the pattern of use of yoga and Ayurveda including reasons for not using and future interest in using them among non-users. Method: An online, international cross-sectional survey was conducted using a pre-designed survey tool. Participants were ethnic Indian women of reproductive age who reported that they were medically diagnosed with PCOS. Descriptive analysis was used to identify the proportion of TCIM users, while a multivariable binary logistic regression was used to analyze their characteristics. Results: Data from 3130 respondents were analysed. The prevalence of TCIM use was 80% (2515/3130). Yoga and Ayurveda were the most frequently practised TCIM modalities with a prevalence of 57% and 37% respectively. We found a high future interest in using yoga (81%) and Ayurveda (70%) among the non-users. The motivation for most Ayurveda use was a recommendation from family/friends (66%), rather than personal choice (38%) or the internet (19%). Most women used Ayurveda because it has natural ingredients (64%) and it is safe (60%) and cited its use to be safe and somewhat helpful. The majority of women were currently practising yoga (73%) up to four times a week (54%) at home (93%). Yoga was primarily used to improve overall health (67%), manage weight (64%), stress (54%) hormonal imbalance (49%) and emotional well-being (48%). Barriers to practising yoga were common among the current users and non-users and included lack of motivation (59% and 59%), time constraints (48% and 39%), and non-availability of yoga teachers specialised in PCOS (31% and 23%). Most women found yoga to be helpful and preferred individual one-on-one (52%) yoga sessions specifically tailored for PCOS (58%). Conclusion: This is the first international study that discovered the prevalence and pattern of TCIM use among ethnic Indian women with PCOS living worldwide. We support the urgent need for more research, education, and regulation of different TCIM modalities to promote safe and effective practices globally

INFLUENCING THE PUBLIC AND EFFICIENCY IN BUREAUCRATIC PROVISION

In the present paper a public bureau can extract additional budgetary allocations, not only by misreporting its production cost to its oversight committee but also by 'influencing' the perceptions of the public at large. I juxtapose the bureau's ability to influence the public with its ability to misreport to the oversight committee, and find that influencing the public might support an efficient level of production by invoking a separating equilibrium. However, a pooling equilibrium involving either overproduction or underproduction of output cannot be ruled out. Accordingly, overproduction could occur even when the bureau cares only about extracting excess budget and not increasing output per se. Copyright 2009 The Author. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd

Corruption in the media\u27s gaze

This paper examines a government\u27s incentive to engage in corruption in the presence of independent media. Different versions of a sequential-move game show how collusion between a media-firm and a government as well as a government\u27s ability to &lsquo;spin&rsquo; the media allegations can undermine corruption deterrence. Further, because of gains from exposing scandal, the media-firm can face incentives to raise false allegations. The paper shows how such false allegations can provide perverse incentives that favor corruption.<br /

Analyzing Corruption Possibilities in the Gaze of the Media

In this paper analyze the economic incentives that govern the strategic relationship between the government and the independent media has been analysed using a consistent analytical framework.The analysis focuses on the extent to which the‘free’ press can act as a deterrent to corruption in governance. It has been found out that although ‘press freedom’ is indeed important as stressed in the existing literature, both mutually profitable cover-up arrangements as well as the government’s ability to ‘manage’ the media’s allegations tend to have a substantial negative impact on the media’s role as an effective watchdog. Also, more competition in the media sector need not necessarily translate into increased deterrence from corruption.[DiscussionPaperNo.2001/30]media,corruption,politicalaccountability,governance,contest