We explore the effect of transparency of fiscal institutions on the scale of government and gubernatorial popularity using a formal model of accountability. We construct an index of fiscal transparency for the American states from detailed budgetary information. With crosssection data for 1986-1995, we find that on average and controlling for other influential factors fiscal transparency increa...

This paper examines the role that political institutions play in inducing or subduing ethnic identification. I provide a formal model of ethnic identification as a function of institutional design and social context that focuses on one question: what kinds of institutions will induce individuals to identify with the state rather than along ethnic lines? Among other things, the model offers pred...

Our goal is to help the developers of computer-based systems to make informed design decisions on the basis of insights gained from the rigorous analysis of abstract system models. The early work on model-oriented specification has inspired the development of numerous formalisms and tools supporting modelling and analysis. There are also many stories of successful industrial application, often ...

We applied a formal method to a theory on statistics, and described some problems of formalization with proposals for resolving them. We show that the proof of formal method makes clear the logical structure of the proof.

The problem with formal methods in philosophy is not whether to apply them or not. For most analytic philosophers they are basic and unquestionably legitimate and fruitful. The problem is their adequacy. Sometimes there is too much use of formal methods in a field, and their richness and the diversity of the formalisms overkills the part of the field and the questions that they are supposed to ...

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Drawing from the author’s twenty years of experience in formal methods research and development, and, particularly, with the EVES-based systems, this paper provides personal impressions on what is and what is not working with regards to the adoption and application of formal methods. As both the community’s understanding of technology transfer issues and formal methods technology improve, one i...