BIO is a trade association representing more than 1,000 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations in all 50 U.S. states and 33 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of health-care, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. Our membership represents a complete cross section of t...

What effect does the initiative process have on the volatility of interest group populations? Theoretical results suggest that interest group communities in initiative states should be characterized by greater rates of entry and exit since the presence of the initiative process increases mobilizations by potentially less stable groups, particularly broad-based citizen groups. I test this predic...

This paper explores the relationship between group membership and trust. Specifically, we examine (1) the importance of trust in the decision to join groups, (2) the subsequent ability of groups to generate trust, and (3) the influence of group membership and trust on a measure of well-being, per capita household income. We use longitudinal data from KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, allowi...

Previous empirical studies suggest that decentralization, measured by the number of government layers, is associated with less foreign direct investment (FDI). With an improved dataset on tax autonomy sub-federal tiers, we present evidence fiscal decentralization (de facto) does not reduce FDI. If local governments can set their rates and bases independently, they attract more Analyzing 83,458 ...

In United States v. Loughner the Ninth Circuit will soon address the constitutionality of involuntarily medicating an incompetent pretrial defendant through a Harper order that could serve to render him competent to stand trial without the added procedural protection of a judicial hearing. Judicial support for applying Harper orders to pretrial defendants is likely to be used to justify Harper ...

During the past half-century, states have established a large number of international trade institutions, both multilateral and regional in scope. The existing literature emphasizes that these agreements are chiefly designed to liberalize and increase the flow of overseas commerce. Yet such institutions have another function that has been largely ignored by researchers, namely, reducing volatil...