Combining elements from the theories of public choice and benefit taxation, the author develops a framework in which private citizens can evaluate public activities. Why, and under what circumstances, do bureaucrats increase the size of the public sector and the amount of public spending in...

In this essay, the author explores theoretical concepts behind the current debate on government growth, public sector inefficiency, and the role of fiscal policy with a view to raising the most important issues relevant for fiscal policy. He examines theories of public sector growth, the...

The author aims to empirically determine the significant factors that affect the levels of budget deficits of central governments across time and across countries. He empirically tests two prominent theories of budget deficits-the Barro (1979) tax-smoothing approach, and the still-untested...

In Uzbekistan state enterprises are being changed into shareholding companies, and private enterprises account for 45 percent of all registered firms. But business decisions to set prices, output, and investment are often not market-based, nor wholly within the purview of businesses, especially...

The authors present a political economy model in which policy is the outcome of an interaction between three actors: government (G), managers and workers (W), and transfer recipients (P). The government's objective is to stay in power, for which it needs the support of either P or W. It can...

The Jamaican telecommunications sector today is much more dynamic than it was before and provides much better service. There is widespread skepticism about the current regulatory framework, which is criticized for encouraging a tight telecommunications monopoly, little administrative discretion,...

How can one account for the puzzling behavior of insider-managers who, in stripping assets from the veryfirms they own, appear to be stealing from one pocket to fill the other? The authors suggest that such asset-stripping and failure to restructure are the consequences of interactions between...

This paper assesses the foreign lobbying forces behind the tariff preferences that the United States grants to Latin American and Caribbean countries. The basic framework is the one developed that is extended to explain the relationship between foreign lobbying and tariff preferences. Results...

Chilean legislation is quite conservative, especially compared with international practice. However, its application has not been free of criticism, and it proved necessary to seek mechanisms that combine limitations set forth in the GATT/WTO regulations and others self-imposed by Chilean law....

By populism, this paper refers to an economic approach that emphasizes growth and income redistribution and deemphasizes the risks of inflation and deficit finance, external constraints and the reaction of economic agents to aggressive nonmarket policies. It analyzes two instances of populism -...