A unique hepatitis C virus (HCV) strain JFH-1 has been shown to replicate efficiently in cell culture with production of infectious HCV. We previously developed a DNA expression system containing HCV cDNA flanked by two self-cleaving ribozymes to generate HCV particles in cell culture. In this study, we produced HCV particles of various genotypes including 1a (H77), 1b (CG1b) and 2a (J6 and JFH...

Empirical evidence from the U.S. and the European Union suggests that regions which contribute to interregional redistribution face weaker borrowing constraints than regions which benefit from interregional redistribution. This paper presents an argument in favor of such differentiated budgetary institutions. It develops a two-period model of a federation consisting of two types of regions. The...

This paper investigates the evolution of expenditure inequality in Indonesia during 1999-2008, a period that coincides greatly with the implementation of fiscal decentralisation policy. In general, the results show increasing expenditure inequality evident in a decreasing share of income in the bottom 10 percent, and an increasing share in the top 10 percent. Further examination employing the t...

In the context of China without a median voter system, this study examines whether the “flypaper effect”, an unconditional lump-sum grant from the upper governments to the county governments increases spending in a greater proportion than an equivalent rise in local income, holds true in China. Using China’s county-level education data during 2007, the models have been estimated using a spatial...

This project examines fiscal reforms in Brazil since the 1990s, particularly in taxation, budgeting, and fiscal federalism. While recentralizing fiscal authority and massively expanding the extractive capacity of the state, policymakers chose not to revamp an inefficient tax system that has nonetheless proven capable of generating high levels of revenue. In budgeting, the economic crises of the...

Is our nation safe from terrorist attacks? This paper examines the effectiveness of U.S. federal grants in reducing domestic vulnerability to terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. I derive a model for allocating federal funds to States based on targets within the State, the government budget, and three parameters specific to a target type the probability of attack, the expected damage upon attack, ...

Article history: Received 18 April 2005 Received in revised form 20 March 2008 Accepted 7 May 2008 Available online 24 May 2008 Which government functions should be decentralized (resp. centralized) once lobbying behavior is taken into account?We find that the answer largely depends on how the interests of the regional lobbies are positioned with respect to the function to be decentralized (res...

This paper critically surveys the growing literature on policy choices of local governments. First, we identify various reasons for government interactions, including fiscal competition, bidding firms, yardstick expenditure spillovers, and Tiebout sorting. We discuss theoretically what parameters should be estimated to determine reason competition among emphasize how outcomes emerging from this...

In this paper I offer a novel interpretation of the challenges posed by ‘constitutional drift’—the tendency for de facto political procedures to alter when these procedures no longer are incentive-compatible for those wielding political power—for sound governance institutions, with special reference to the American republic. While it is widely recognized that various watershed political events,...