Quality of life, natural and man-made environments, physical, social and mental well-being are currently undermined by all sorts of hazards and injuries; political, economical, social and cultural disarray normalise atrocious behaviours and violence throughout the world, in a context of...

This research looks at the determinants of the adoption of the school-rhythm reform by French municipalities. The possibility opened to mayors to adopt the reform sooner (2013) or later (2014) offers the opportunity to measure how much the interests of the children have weighted on the decision....

For the period 2008-2009 of the “Great Recession,” the gross state-level in-migration rate was an increasing function of expected per capita personal income, state parks per capita, and warmer January temperatures. For the same study period, the gross in-migration rate was a decreasing...

This paper formulates a simple mathematical framework for the selection of an optimum "relative unanimity” collective decision rule. The approach is first to identify the benefits of moving from a rule of simple majority towards a rule of full unanimity. Then, the costs of moving from simple...

This paper examines the political economy of emerging infectious disease (EID) surveillance programs. It provides lessons learned for U.S. military medical research laboratories collaborating with developing countries and is comprised of four case studies: Kenya (U.S. Army Medical Research...

This paper addresses the interaction of voter information and seniority on electoral accountability. We test whether information leads voters to be less tolerant of moral hazard in a legislative system favoring seniority. A simple game theoretic model is used to predict outcomes in a pork-barrel...

This paper uses experiments to explore electoral accountability in a legislative system that favors seniority. Voters face a trade-off between pork barrel transfers and policy representation. Term limits are tested as a mechanism to reduce the cost of searching for a legislator who better...

In this paper, we formulate a political system that can satisfy certain desirable characteristics that include democratic participation, serving for universal interest, public sector efficiency, and sustainable by incentive compatibility and virtuous cycles. The system comprises a set of rules...