'Uncategorized' Category
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Feb042012
What’s not to like about pluralism?
It seems like calls for evidence on pluralism are ten-a-penny these days. Here are some submissions that I’ve done with wonderful colleagues from UEA, Shaun Hargreaves-Heap, Michael Harker, John Street, and Daithà Mac SithÃgh.
Submission to Ofcom on media plurality
Submission to the Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport -
Jan032012
The costs of politics
The publication of an interim report from the Giovannini Commission on the costs of politics has raised quite a stink.
The report confirms that Italian deputies are grossly overpaid in relation to comparable parliamentarians in France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.
Yet the Chamber of Deputies press office has put out a press release [...] -
Nov302011
Haves and have-nots in the Lords
Here’s a paper I’ve been working on. Abstract is below; data and Sweave source [rename to .Rnw] also available.
One important characteristic of justice, and a fortiori of our judicial system, is impartiality. One type of impartiality in judicial practice is impartiality between litigants who command status and material resources — the `haves’ — and litigants [...]
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Nov282011
The trade union vote
Mark Pack asked about the trade union vote. Here’s a weighted table pulled from the BES pre-electoral polling, the only wave that included a question about trade union membership.
yes, trade union yes, staff association no don’t know
labour [...] -
Nov272011
What’s so great about finance ministers?
I was very struck recently by the FT’s ranking of EU finance ministers.
It’s a rare venture into rating ministers other than Presidents or Prime Ministers. And, it’s been repeated over time.
I thought it might be useful to gather data on rankings over time, and construct a measure of finance minister “greatness” comparing across time. To [...] -
Nov162011
Monti 2013?
I’m quite surprised that Monti wants to stay until 2013.
That’s a long time for a technocratic government. Assume that elections in 2013 take place exactly five years after those of 2008, on the 13th and 14th. By that time, Monti would have been in office for 514 days.
That’s a month longer than Dini who, IMHO, [...] -
Nov132011
Berlusconi and the markets
It is a good thing that Berlusconi has resigned as Prime Minister. Hallelujah.
Some people are upset about the way in which Berlusconi was forced to leave office. Those who are upset fall into two camps. One left-leaning camp is upset that Berlusconi was forced out by bond traders. One right-leaning camp (at least the version [...] -
Sep072011
Measuring regulators’ independence
I have a new paper out.
It’s called “Measuring the formal independence of regulatory agencies”, it’s written together with Christel Koop, and it’s available online through JEPP.
The argument we make is quite simple, even if the graphs and models we use aren’t.
We take an existing index of independence, and we test whether all the [...] -
Sep022011
Pages and word counts
I’m writing a grant application.
Some of the documents in support of the application have an upper limit on the number of characters; some have an upper limit on the number of pages.
I find limits on the number of pages annoying. The quantity of pages of a document has no relationship to the quantity of [...] -
Aug182011
ECPR Programme
I got tired of waiting for the ECPR printed programme, and got frustrated with the ECPR website.
So I made my own PDF programme for Reykjavik 2011. It’s in A5 format, and is optimized for e-readers, so very thin margins. Other formats on request.