Public and Private Welfare State Institutions: A Formal Theory of American Exceptionalism

I construct a model of public policy development, and use the model to explain why the United States has a comparatively small public sector, but instead a large "private welfare state" with employment-based benefits. The key factors are politically organized firms and labor unions. These interest groups can use campaign support to influence a political decision-maker who decides whether to implement a social benefit. In addition, the firms can influence the outcome indirectly by privately providing their own workers with the benefit. This setup leads to three possible outcomes. In the first, no one is provided the social benefit. In the second, all workers receive it through government provision. In the third, some workers receive the policy, through their employers. I argue that the features leading to the third equilibrium correspond closely to political institutions and industry characteristics of the US, while the features of the second equilibrium better describe European countries.Political Economy; Interest Groups; Institutions; Welfare States

Consumer surveys in Juva and Järna for identification of eco-local food baskets

In both Finland and Sweden a family member collected the receipts or filled in purchase diaries for all food entering the household for human consumption during 14 days period. Information on the amount, price, origin and environmental brand of all food products was recorded. After the recording period, the families were interviewed about their food choices, food consumption and food purchasing habits

Bargaining over a New Welfare State

The goal of this paper is twofold: First, to develop an estimable model of legislative politics in the US Congress, second, to provide a greater understanding of the objectives behind the New Deal. In the theoretical model, the distribution of federal funds across regions of the country is the outcome of bargaining game in which the President acts as the agenda-setter and Congress bargains over the final shape of the spending bill. For any given preferences (of the President) and distribution of seats in Congress, the model delivers a unique predicted allocation. Combined with data on New Deal programs, this is used to estimate the objectives of the Roosevelt administration. The results indicate that economic concerns for relief and recovery, though not necessarily for fundamental reform and development, largely drove New Deal spending. Political concerns also mattered, but more on the margin.Political Economy; LegislativeBargaining; New Deal; US Congress; Public Spending

Local and ecological food consumption - case studies in Finland and Sweden

Preliminary results show that in the Juva district amount of energy according to the purchase diary is 7.6 MJ/person/day and in Järna district the amount is 9.4 MJ/person/day. Our results are in a range that is reasonable

Public and Private Welfare State Institutions: A Formal Theory of American Exceptionalism

I construct a model of public policy development, and use the model to explain why the United States has a comparatively small public sector, but instead a large private welfare state with employment-based benefits. The key factors are politically organized firms and labor unions. These interest groups can use campaign support to influence a political decision-maker who decides whether to implement a social benefit. In addition, the firms can influence the outcome indirectly by privately providing their own workers with the benefit. This setup leads to three possible outcomes. In the first, no one is provided the social benefit. In the second, all workers receive it through government provision. In the third, some workers receive the policy, through their employers. I argue that the features leading to the third equilibrium correspond closely to political institutions and industry characteristics of the US, while the features of the second equilibrium better describe European countries

The potential of ecological recycling agriculture (ERA) for improved nature resource conservation and reduced environmental impacts in the Baltic Sea drainage area

By integrating crop and animal production on a farm or farms in closed cooperation combined with soil formation legume crops in balanced crop-rotations it will be possible to maximize the efficient use of nutrients in manure, minimize inputs of limited nutrient resources, minimize nutrient surpluses and reduce the input of nutrients to the Baltic Sea by more than 50 %. This will be the basis for recommendation to convert the agriculture in the Baltic drainage area

Effective recycling agriculture around the Baltic Sea: background report

In this report the historical background and present situation of the plant nutrient balances and surplus of plant nutrients within the agricultural sector in the eight countries of the Baltic Sea catchments area (Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, Germany and Russia) are presented and analysed. The Baltic Ecological Recycling Agriculture and Society (BERAS) project is evaluating the consequences of converting the whole agricultural sector according to recycling principles. This analysis is being based on data from selected ecological recycling farms within the Baltic drainage area and will be presented in a series of project reports of which this is the first for Work Package 2, Effects on environment, natural resources and health

Ethnic divisions, political institutions and the duration of declines

This paper analyzes the duration of large economic declines and provides a theory of delayed recovery. First, we develop a formal political economy model that illustrates a simple mechanism of how weak constraints on the political executive can lead to longer declines in ethnically heterogeneous countries. The model shows how uncertain post-recovery incomes and a `winner-take-all' threshold effect create a commitment problem rendering a cooperative equilibrium inaccessible. Holding out can benefit groups by reducing the threshold effects in subsequent periods, thus limiting the remaining uncertainty. Placing strong constraints on the executive solves this commitment problem by reducing the uncertainty from the threshold effects, which brings about cooperation earlier on. Second, we then test several empirical predictions from the model using standard data on linguistic heterogeneity and more detailed data on ethnic power configurations. We find that the partial correlations are consistent with the proposed theory. The effect of executive constraints on the length of declines is very large in heterogeneous countries, but practically disappears in ethnically homogeneous societies. The adverse effect of heterogeneity is driven by the number of groups; increasing political concentration works in the opposite direction

Bargaining over a New Welfare State

The goal of this paper is twofold: First, to develop an estimable model of legislative politics in the US Congress, second, to provide a greater understanding of the objectives behind the New Deal. In the theoretical model, the distribution of federal funds across regions of the country is the outcome of bargaining game in which the President acts as the agenda-setter and Congress bargains over the final shape of the spending bill. For any given preferences (of the President) and distribution of seats in Congress, the model delivers a unique predicted allocation. Combined with data on New Deal programs, this is used to estimate the objectives of the Roosevelt administration. The results indicate that economic concerns for relief and recovery, though not necessarily for fundamental reform and development, largely drove New Deal spending. Political concerns also mattered, but more on the margin

Systems analysis of small-scale systems for food supply and organic waste management

In this thesis, systems for recycling of household organic waste (easily degradable food waste and sewage water) and small-scale systems for food supply were evaluated to see if they could be environment and energy-conserving options. They were evaluated using simulation of static substance-flow models (SFA) combined with life cycle assessment methodology (LCA) for aggregation and interpretation of the results. Three systems were modelled and simulated: i) organic waste management (including transport, spreading on arable land and cropping of grain), ii) bread processing and distribution and finally iii) liquid milk processing and distribution. The results were found to be very dependent on factors such as choice of system boundaries, transport distances and type of technology. Thus, it was not possible to draw general conclusions regarding the organic waste management system and the scale of food supply system which were most beneficial. However, for the organic waste management system, it was concluded that toilet water-separating sewage systems are a means to increase the rate of nutrient recycling. Furthermore, it was found that urine-separating toilet systems increase nitrogen-recycling rate and decrease energy consumption. The results indicated that anaerobic digestion of organic wastes from society and animal manure could be a system for farmers (or communities) to become more energy self-supporting. With regard to the food supply system (the transport and processing chain of foodstuffs), it was concluded that energy optimised small-scale food processing and distribution systems could have lower environmental impacts and energy consumption than large-scale systems. However, this requires that the advantages of small-scale be utilised in the entire system, i.e. they should be combined with a nearby local market in order to minimise all transport. The results obtained indicate that the processing step and the private-car transport of food from shop to consumer's home are the most essential parts of the food supply system with respect to environmental impacts and energy consumption