In a recent publication, the lack of consensus among U.S. laws regarding the age at which minors may consent to confidential treatment for abuse of illegal substances was highlighted. This article reports the results of an investigation of the information used by legislators to determine the age at which minors may consent to treatment. Evidence indicates that in four states lawmakers considere...

Past research using self-report questionnaires administered to ordinary citizens demonstrates that value priorities differ as a function of one’s political ideology, but it is unclear whether this conclusion applies to political elites, who are presumably seeking to appeal to very broad constituencies. We used quantitative methods of textual analysis to investigate value-laden language in a col...

bHowever, the concept of law has analytical and practical priority over the other two categories The different concepts of law indicate us what are law’s structural elements, the aims it should attain and/or the roles that the various legal actors (judges, legislators, and practitioners, for example) should play in legal practice. In this way, usually, law schools’ curricula and teaching method...

We study conditions under which optimal policy experimentation can be implemented by a legislature. We consider a dynamic legislative bargaining game in which, each period, legislators choose to implement a risky reform or maintain a known policy. We first show that when no redistribution is allowed the unique equilibrium outcome is generically inefficient. When legislators are allowed to redis...

We ask whether the birthplaces of Italian members of Parliament are favoured in the allocation of central government transfers. Using a panel of municipalities for the years between 1994 and 2006, we find that municipal governments of legislators' birth towns receive larger transfers per capita. Exploiting the fact that some birth towns are outside of the district of election, we conclude that ...

Are there systematic political economy factors that shape preferences for foreign aid, a key component of American foreign policy? We analyze votes in the House of Representatives from 1979 to 2003 that would increase or decrease foreign aid by considering the political, economic, and ideological characteristics of legislators and their districts. To understand who supports and opposes foreign ...

Bioavailability is, to an increasing extent, recognised as the key issue linking the increased levels of toxicants to actually occurring adverse effects in ecosystems, whilst taking the modifying effects of the abiotic components of the environment into account. Various factors may affect bioavailability in the field, and these factors are often time and space dependent. This is one of the main...

The main questions which the literature on rule production by agencies and bureaucracies deals with are: To what extent should legislators delegate rule making to bureaucracy? How can procedural rules curb an agency’s discretion in making substantive rules? Do legislators select bureaucratic decisions for oversight randomly or on the basis of complaints? Who exactly controls bureaucracy: some a...

Particularistic spending, a large literature argues, builds support for incumbents. This literature equates money spent in the district with the credit constituents allocate. Yet, constituents lack the necessary information andmotivation to allocate credit in this way.We use extensive observational and experimental evidence to showhow legislators’ credit claimingmessages—and not justmoney spent...

Better understanding of the cognitive framework for decision making among legislators is important for advocacy of health-promoting legislation. In 1994, the authors surveyed state legislators from North Carolina, Texas, and Vermont concerning their beliefs and intentions related to voting for a hypothetical measure to enforce legislation preventing the sale of tobacco to minors, using scales b...