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We study the formation of government policy in democracies when turnout depends on party activists and campaign spending—parties' “political capital.” The functional importance of political capital determines equilibrium rent- seeking in government. If activists and donors are better than the ordinary voter at distinguishing between good governments and lucky governments, then the more potent political capital is the less the extent of rent-seeking. This situation also rules out finite limits on election spending, though a zero limit could be the optimum if donors and activists are close enough substitutes in the work they do for the party. The one policy that is never optimal is a finite limit on local spending. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the release of Treasury papers from the 1970s under the 30-year rule we have a much more complete picture of the dispute in the 1970s between the Treasury and the Cambridge Economic Policy Group (CEPG), especially given the role of three Cambridge economists—Nicholas Kaldor, Wynne Godley and Francis Cripps—as ministerial advisers at the time. The records show some eventual closing of the gap between the Treasury and the CEPG regarding the latter’s proposition of stable private-sector NAFA (where NAFA stands for net acquisition of private sector assets) and its implications for demand management and the balance of payments. In contrast, the initial differences on counterinflation policy and, above all, on import controls versus free trade were wider at the end of the decade than at the start of it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1868 Gladstone appointed Robert Lowe (1811–92) chancellor, despite Lowe's rebarbative attacks on Gladstone's own chancellorships, because he thought Lowe the best man to hold down public spending. Public spending in fact rose, and Gladstone pronounced Lowe ‘wretchedly deficient’, a view that posterity has not challenged. This article argues that Lowe was a better Gladstonian than Gladstone himself. Lowe also stood out for his systematic underestimation of the revenue, enabling him to resist the clamour for tax cuts and to reduce the national debt instead; and for his insistence that the tax system be fair to all classes, which was more intense and protracted than any other chancellor of the age. By his own criterion of fairness – that the balance between direct and indirect taxation remain unchanged – he succeeded. But in fact this balance had never been a good measure of class incidence and was by that time thoroughly archaic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a dynamic model of Rational Partisan Business Cycles in which wage contracts overlap elections and wage setters have to make a prediction about the election result. Empirical analysis of 20 OECD countries supports the theoretical implication that left wing incumbents increase output, but increased expectation of a left wing regime reduces it. The model is extended to incorporate the effects of alternative measures of Central Bank Independence (CBI). The measure of objective independence outperforms the other measures and it is found that CBI reduces politically induced business cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the impact of membership in currency areas on marginal cost curve and marginal benefit curve. Distinction between misalignment cost and variance cost as consequences in currency union; Effect of votations on currency union; Differences between the situations of members in currency union; Expansion of currency areas in an optimum level.

Background Several enteroviruses (EVs), including EV-A71 and EV-D68, have been associated with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). Clinical features distinguishing AFM presentations associated with specific EV types are not well described. Methods EV-associated AFM was defined as any child presenting to Children's Hospital Colorado in 2013–2018 who met the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists definition for confirmed AFM (flaccid limb weakness with longitudinal gray-matter-predominant spinal cord lesion on MRI) and had EV-A71 or EV-D68 identified in any biologic specimen (cerebrospinal fluid [CSF], nasopharyngeal [NP], oropharyngeal [OP], rectal) by VP1-specific RT-PCR and sequencing. Summative limb strength scores (SLSS) were calculated by adding Medical Research Council strength scores (1–5) for all limbs. Results Ten cases of EV-A71-associated AFM were identified, all from 2018; 8 cases of EV-D68-associated AFM were identified from 2013 (1), 2014 (4), 2016 (1), and 2018 (2) [Table 1]. Viral detection rates were higher in rectal and OP swabs in EV-A71 cases and NP specimens in EV-D68 cases. Virus was not detected in CSF of EV-D68 cases and in 1 EV-A71 case. EV-A71 cases were younger (median 19 vs. 100 months) and had neurologic onset earlier after prodromal symptom onset (median 1 vs. 5.5 days) than EV-D68 cases. Hand, foot, and/or mouth lesions distinguished EV-A71 cases, whereas respiratory symptoms were uniformly noted in EV-D68 cases. Associated neurologic findings more commonly associated with EV-A71 cases than EV-D68 cases included irritability, myoclonus, and ataxia. Weakness was more generalized with EV-A71 and more asymmetric with EV-D68, though patterns of brainstem and spinal cord involvement on MRI were similar. Compared with EV-D68, EV-A71 cases had milder weakness at onset and improved strength at 1- to 2-month follow-up (Figure 1), shorter length of stay (median 5.5 vs. 32 days) and a greater rate of full neurologic recovery (90% vs. 13%). Conclusion EV-D68 and EV-A71 are both associated with AFM with similar MRI findings, but cases can be distinguished by associated prodromal symptoms, neurologic findings, and outcomes. Timely collection and testing of nonsterile site specimens, particularly NP for EV-D68 and OP and rectal for EV-A71, are key to case identification. Disclosures All Authors: No reported Disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the book "Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw," edited by Philip Mirowski. To this reviewer the gems of the collection are Alexander Rosenberg's discouraging but masterly demolition of the pretensions of "evolutionary economics" (never has an apparent exit from the frustration of neoclassicism been closed off more effectively) and Theodore M. Porter's chapter on why orthodox economics came to imitate theoretical rather than experimental physics. The idea that the book was translated into mathematics in order to trash the previous works, prior to rebuilding economics along the lines of the empirical science of physics, was new, but the professors of the book are entirely convincing here. Elsewhere time sometimes hangs heavy on the authors', and readers', hands. A three-page analysis of the metaphor "time is money," complete with flow charts, would have been better done in 10 lines. This comes in the chapter in which, the authors put metaphors in brackets to underline that they're metaphors.

The article focuses on the book "Making Sense of a Changing Economy: Technology, Markets and Morals," by Edward J. Nell. Edward Nell started this book to answer the kind of questions his classmates and their wives ask him at college reunions. He tells them that the government spending multiplier is always unity, and that this turns all the "learned technical talk" about crowding-out into "smoke and mirrors reflecting nothing." Ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was "adventurism" as was the rescue of Grenada in 1983. Subscribers to public pension funds should have their money used to "take an important position," in the two or three thousand largest firms, who will then be prevented from making more than "the normal profits required for debt-servicing and to underwrite research and development." This last is the cornerstone of Nell's counter-inflation policy. Turning to political theory, he complains that individualism allows nothing between laissez-faire and prohibition, which is why it is hopelessly ambiguous on where the boundaries should be drawn in any particular case.