Competition reduces rent extraction in private-sector firms. In this article, we empirically assess whether it similarly disciplines politicians by evaluating local-level governments' performance in ...Flanders. The results indicate that electoral competition - measured via the number of parties competing in elections - significantly positively affects the productive efficiency of municipal policy. Intertemporal competition - measured as the volatility of election outcomes over time - has a similar, but weaker, positive effect. These beneficial effects are mitigated by the fact that competition may lead to more fragmented governments, which is shown to work against their productive efficiency. Overall, though, the beneficial effects outweigh the unfavourable ones in our sample.
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A Geography of Heritage Graham, Brian; Ashworth, G. J.; Tunbridge, J. E.
2000, 2016-04-29
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The concept of heritage relates to the ways in which contemporary society uses the past as a social, political or economic resource. However, heritage is open to interpretation and its value may be ...perceived from differing perspectives - often reflecting divisions in society. Moreover, the schism between the cultural and economic uses of heritage also gives rise to potential conflicts of interest.
Examining these issues in depth, this book is the first sustained attempt to integrate the study of heritage into contemporary human geography. It is structured around three themes: the diversity of use and consumption of heritage as a multi-sold cultural and economic resource; the conflicts and tensions arising from this multiplicity of uses, producers and consumers; and the relationship between heritage and identity at a variety of scales.
The success of the first edition of Generalized Linear Models led to the updated Second Edition, which continues to provide a definitive unified, treatment of methods for the analysis of diverse ...types of data. Today, it remains popular for its clarity, richness of content and direct relevance to agricultural, biological, health, engineering, and other applications.
This article analyzes how age grouping in youth competitions and soccer education programs affects wage formation at the professional level. A simple theoretical model shows that professional players ...born late after the cutoff date are expected to earn systematically higher wages than their early-born peers. Two discriminating factors are responsible for this: a systematic bias in the talent detection system and peer effects in the production process of human (sports) capital. The authors demonstrate the existence of such an effect among (native) German professional soccer players. Estimating an earnings function for players in the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons, the authors find clear evidence of a month-of-birth-related wage bias. Players born late after the cutoff date earn systematically higher wages, though this effect is not discernible in all positions; it is strongest for goalkeepers and defenders but not evident for forwards.
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This paper extends the empirical literature about the effects of fiscal decentralization on the growth of government along three dimensions. It distinguishes between the effects of the level of ...decentralization from the way local governments finance their expenditures (common pool versus own resources); it uses a panel cointegration approach to separate the long run effects of decentralization from the short run dynamics; and it extends and revises the datasets generally used in these empirical analyses. The results show that the amount of revenue raised by sub-national governments leads to a long-term fall in the size of government but grants have the opposite effect. In addition, a greater decentralization of expenditure leads to greater overall spending. When the short-term is considered these influences work slowly, as the speed of adjustment towards the desired government size is relatively sluggish. In addition, in the short run, there is also a clear effect from the role of local revenue raising powers that stimulates the growth of government. These results appear robust to changes in the composition of the variables, countries and periods included the sample.
Abstract
This essay replies to critics of my earlier piece in Historical Materialism (Volume 19, Issue 4, 2011) which looked at the origins of the American Civil War. The essay re-emphasises the ...importance of the shift to wage labour in the North, it re-asserts the need to incorporate slave resistance as a key factor in any causal account of the sectional conflict, and it argues that the ultimate northern victory in that conflict should be seen as constituting a 'bourgeois revolution'. It engages specifically with the criticisms and some of the alternative interpretations offered by Charles Post, Eric Foner and Neil Davidson.
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Bringing together case studies from Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Mexico, this book examines the link between senses of place and senses of time. It suggests that not only do place ...identities change through time, but imagined pasts also provide resources which the present selects and packages for its own contemporary purposes and for forwarding to imagined futures. The reasons behind the creation of place image are also explored, setting them within political and social contexts. In its three main sections - Heritage in the Creation of Senses of Place; Heritage and Conflicting Identities; and Heritage and the Creation of Senses of Place - the book examines the creation of place identities at the urban, rural, regional and international scales. It questions how senses of place interact with senses of ethnic/cultural identity, what the roles of government, media, residents and tourists are in creating senses of place, and how and why all these variables change through time.
G.J Ashworth is Professor at the Faculty of Spatial Science, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Brian Graham is Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, UK.
Contents: Introduction: Senses of place, senses of time and heritage. Creating Senses Of Place From Senses Of Time: Introduction to theme one, G.J. Ashworth and Brian Graham; Making places: a story of De Venen, Paulus P.P. Huigen and Louise Meijering; Commodification of regional identities: the 'selling' of Waterland, Carola Simon; 'That quintessential repository of collective memory': identity, locality and the townland in Northern Ireland, Bryonie Reid; Mapping meanings in the cultural landscape, Yvonne Whelan; Exploring the Irish mumming tradition with GIS, Amanda McMullan. The Public/Official Creation Of Place Identities: Introduction to theme two, G.J. Ashworth and Brian Graham; Irish regimental heritage: representations of identity and war in a climate of change, Kenneth J.S. Miller; A place called Nunavut: building on Inuit past, K.I.M. van Dam; Conflict commemoration amongst Protestants in Northern Ireland, Catherine Switzer; World heritage as a means of marking Mexican identity, Bart van der Aa. Insiders and Outsiders: Introduction to theme three, G.J. Ashworth and Brian Graham; Escaping times and places: an artist community in Germany, Bettina van Hoven, Louise Meijering and Paulus P.P. Huigen; Literature and the constitution of place identity: three examples from Belfast, Jonathan Stainer; Imagining Newfoundlands, G.J. Ashworth; Media production of rural identities, Peter Groote and Tialda Haartsen; The creation of identities by government designation: a case study of the Korreweg district, Groningen, Netherlands, M.J. Kuipers. Conclusions: The next questions, G.J. Ashworth and Brian Graham; Index.
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