Low-level replication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in cultured lymphoblastoid cells inoculated with H77 serum inoculum led to the appearance of new virus variants containing identical substitutions at three sites within the viral 5* nontranslated RNA (5*NTR): G1073A, C2043A, and G2433A (N. Nakajima, M. Hijikata, H. Yoshikura, and Y. K. Shimizu, J. Virol. 70:3325–3329, 1996). These results suggest...

For decades, rapid urban expansion has led to concerns over the loss of cultivated land in rural China. Less well known is the fact that development of newly cultivated land has in fact consistently exceeded land conversion from 1999-2006. This paper provides an analytical model that makes sense of this observation, featuring fiscal decentralization, local governments as custodians of land use ...

We study the effects on accountability in government service delivery of decentralizing administration of an antipoverty program. While governments at both central and local levels are vulnerable to antipoor policy biases owing to political capture, centralized delivery systems are additionally prone to bureaucratic corruption, owing to problems in monitoring bureaucratic performance. Decentral...

This paper considers collective bargaining in a public sector institutional setting. The model demonstrates how budget constraints and hierarchical structure affect the bargaining outcome. A trade union bargains over wage and employment either with an output-maximizing bureau or the bureau’s sponsoring institution. The slope of the contract curve depends on the bargaining level because the budg...

Contrary to simple theoretical predictions, existing evidence suggests that federal grants do not crowd out state government spending. A legislative bargaining model with endogenous grants documents a positive correlation between grant receipts and preferences for public goods; this correlation has likely biased existing work against measuring crowd-out. To correct for such endogeneity, the mod...

In a Regression Kink (RK) design with a finite sample, a confounding smooth nonlinear relationship between an assignment variable and an outcome variable around a threshold can be spuriously picked up as a kink and result in a biased estimate. In order to investigate how well RK designs handle such confounding nonlinearity, I firstly implement Monte Carlo simulations and then study the effect o...

Fiscal Union Consensus Design under the Risk of Autarky* Inspired by the current debate over the future of the monetary union in Europe, this paper provides a simple model for the determination of the conditions of survival of the common good, which requires the creation of an effective fiscal union. We highlight the importance of institutional design and varying decision weights for the enlarg...

Partisanship of state governors affects the efficacy US federal fiscal policy. Using close election data, we find partisan differences in marginal propensity to spend intergovernmental transfers: Republican less than Democratic governors. Correspondingly, Republican-led states have lower debt, (delayed) taxes, and initially economic activity. A New Keynesian model a monetary union implies sizab...

1. Low doses of D-amphetamine increased brain noradrenaline concentrations in the rat; doses greater than 5 mg/kg, however, caused a decrease. Methylamphetamine also showed this dual effect, but a reduction in brain noradrenaline concentration only occurred when doses greater than 10 mg/kg were administered. p-Bromomethylamphetamine did not significantly reduce brain noradrenaline concentration...

Pearl millet, a key staple crop of the semi-arid tropics, is mostly grown in water-limited conditions, and improving its performance depends on how genotypes manage limited water resources. This study investigates whether the control of water loss under non-limiting water conditions is involved in the terminal drought tolerance of pearl millet. Two pairs of tolerant x sensitive pearl millet gen...