Corruption and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the US States

The literature on voter turnout focuses on the determinants of the electorate’s vote supply. There is growing recognition, however, that the demanders of votes—candidates, political parties, and interest groups—have strong incentives to invest resources in mobilizing support on Election Day. The authors test the hypothesis that corruption rents increase the value of holding public office and, hence, elicit greater demand-side effort in building winning coalitions. Analyzing a pooled time-series data set of public officials convicted of misusing their offices between 1979 and 2005, we find, after controlling for other influential factors, that governmental corruption raises voter turnout rates in gubernatorial elections

Atoms for Peace: Now what?

Sixty years ago this December, President Dwight D. Eisenhower turned a dangerous situation around. In an address to the U.N. General Assembly at the height of the Cold War, he made a commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. That commitment is now being threatened: by activists who oppose building a storage depository for nuclear waste and by energy policies that favor any alternative to fossil fuels except a nuclear one.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1115/thumbnail.jp

Think Ethanol is Environmentally Friendly? Think Again

America\u27s prairies are disappearing at the fastest rate since the 1930s\u27 Dust Bowl.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1087/thumbnail.jp

How a Goat-Farming Immigrant Changed Everything

In the dozens of articles and obituaries written about George Mitchell, who died late last month at 94, the Texas oilman, entrepreneur and philanthropist was remembered mostly as the father of the fracking boom, whose innovations led to the shale-gas revolution.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1140/thumbnail.jp

Big Brother Declares War on Consumption

Doctors routinely advise patients to avoid a wide range of unhealthy behavior, such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, a poor diet, and lack of exercise. Beyond these salutary suggestions, however, there is also a growing paternalistic trend to prohibit activities like smoking—and through targeted taxation, governments are taking aim at food deemed unhealthy for having too much fat, preservatives, salt, or sugar. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg\u27s ban on large, sugary drinks was just ruled unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the state Supreme Court\u27s Appellate Division—but this ruling isn\u27t likely to discourage hardened advocates.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1141/thumbnail.jp

Corruption and Voter Participation: Evidence from the U.S. States

Abstract: The literature on voter turnout focuses on the determinants of the electorate's vote supply. There is growing recognition, however, that the demanders of votes -candidates, political parties and interest groups -have strong incentives to invest resources in mobilizing support on Election Day. We test the hypothesis that corruption rents increase the value of holding public office and, hence, elicit greater demand-side effort in building winning coalitions. Analyzing a panel dataset of public officials convicted of misusing their offices between 1977 and 2005, we find, after controlling for other influential factors, that governmental corruption raises voter turnout rates in gubernatorial elections. JEL Classifications: D72, K4, H

Private Enforcement, Corruption, and Antitrust Design

Recent adoption of competition laws across the globe has highlighted the importance of institutional considerations for antitrust effectiveness and the need for comparative institutional analyses of antitrust that extend beyond matters of substantive law. Contributing to the resulting nascent research agenda, we examine how the rationale for enabling versus precluding private antitrust enforcement as one salient choice in antitrust design depends on whether antitrust enforcement is corruption-free or plagued by corruption. Contingent on the nature of adjudicatory bias, bribery either discourages private antitrust lawsuits or incentivizes firms to engage in frivolous litigation. Corruption expectedly reduces the effectiveness of antitrust enforcement at deterring antitrust violations. Yet private antitrust enforcement as a complement to public enforcement can be social welfare-enhancing even in the presence of corruption. Under some circumstances, corruption actually increases the relative social desirability of private antitrust enforcement. Our analysis highlights that the appropriate design of antitrust institutions is context-specific

Notorious murders, black lanterns, & moveable goods: the transformation of Edinburgh's underworld in the early nineteenth century, by Symonds, D. A., Series on International Political and Economic History, University of Akron Press: Akron, OH; 2006, xiv+180pp., USD 39.95 (cloth).

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