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This paper shows that more than 80% of the E-Governments in the world are vulnerable to common Web-application attacks such as Cross Site Scripting and SQL injection. Industrialized countries were found to be more vulnerable than under-developed countries (90% vs. 50%). The paper also describes some malicious data mining possibilities on the Norwegian E-Government, and how information can be co...

The Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau publishes estimates of many aggregates. To achieve more accurate results with lower cost one goal of sampling is to minimize the number of smaller and non-contributory units in the overall design. Unfortunately, little research has been conducted to determine how to reduce smaller units. In this paper, we propose a numerical procedure based on ...

We provide a simple framework for comparing market allocations with government-regulated allocations. Governments can collect information about individuals’types and enforce transfers across individuals. Markets (without signi…cant government intervention) have to rely on transactions that are ex post bene…cial for individuals. Consequently, governments achieve better risk sharing and consumpti...

The role of township-owned enterprises in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy during reform is widely acknowledged. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, these firms began to be privatized. Perhaps the most striking feature of this process is that it has not occurred uniformly across townships. This raises the simple question: When and why do government leaders privatize? Drawing on a unique...

We study dynamic selection of governments under different political institutions, with a special focus on institutional "flexibility" . A government consists of a subset of the individuals in the society. The competence level of the government in office determines collective utilities (e.g., by determining the amount and quality of public goods), and each individual derives additional utility f...