Governments unable to make credible promises hinder economic development and effective policy making. Scholars have focused considerable attention on checks and balances and the delegation of authority to independent agencies as institutional solutions to this problem. The political conditions under which these institutions enhance credibility, rather than policy stability, are still unclear, however. We show that checks – multiple veto players – enhance credibility, depending on the extent of uncertainty about the location of the status quo, on how agenda control is allocated among the veto players, and on whether veto players have delegated policy making authority to independent agencies. In the context of monetary policy and independent central banks, we find evidence supporting the following predictions: delegation is more likely to enhance credibility and political replacements of central bank governors are less likely in the presence of multiple political veto players; this effect increases with the polarization of veto players.

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The Limits of Delegation: Veto Players, Central Bank Independence, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy

During the last three decades, the arena of biodiversity conservation has largely aligned itself with the globally dominant political ideology of neoliberalism and associated governmentalities. Schemes such as payments for ecological services are promoted to reach the multiple ‘wins’ so desired: improved biodiversity conservation, economic development, (international) cooperation and poverty alleviation, amongst others. While critical scholarship with respect to understanding the linkages between neoliberalism, capitalism and the environment has a long tradition, a synthesized critique of neoliberal conservation - the ideology (and related practices) that the salvation of nature requires capitalist expansion - remains lacking. This paper aims to provide such a critique. We commence with the assertion that there has been a conflation between ‘economics’ and neoliberal ideology in conservation thinking and implementation. As a result, we argue, it becomes easier to distinguish the main problems that neoliberal win-win models pose for biodiversity conservation. These are framed around three points: the stimulation of contradictions; appropriation and misrepresentation and the disciplining of dissent. Inspired by Bruno Latour’s recent ‘compositionist manifesto’, the conclusion outlines some ideas for moving beyond critique.

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Towards a Synthesized Critique of Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation

http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/FM599.pdf

Government size and automatic stabilizers: international and intranational evidence

A new world order: explaining the international diffusion of the gold standard, 1870–1913

Have Monetary Policies Failed

The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, Together with the Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality, More Probably by Captain John Graunt. Charles Henry Hull

Hobson's Theory of Distribution

The South, through its ports-New Orleans, Galveston, Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston-is engaged in the importation of such products as coffee or bananas from South and Central America, and in the exportation of its main staple, cotton, to Europe. In both cases, the transactions give rise to credit instruments by which shipments of actual cash are saved. That is, bills of exchange (or drafts) from different countries are offset against each other in international bookkeeping with much the same general effect as are checks on different banks within our country offset against each other at our clearing houses. To show the probable working of a National Reserve Association upon southern business and banking, it will be well to discuss (a) the matter of exports; and later (b) that of imports. Under (a), the points taken up will be: (i) A description of the present movement of cotton, and the bills of lading arising therefrom; (2) The present financing of this movement by the banks; (3) The evils of the present system; (4) The remedies offered by a National Reserve Association and acceptances; (5) The bills-of-lading question.

J. Laurence Laughlin

Papers

The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, Together with the Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality, More Probably by Captain John Graunt. Charles Henry Hull

Hobson's Theory of Distribution

A National Reserve Association and the Movement of Cotton in the South

Money and Prices in Foreign Countries.

Appreciation of Gold