Bureaucratic Leverage over Policy Choice: Explaining the Dynamics of State-Level Reforms in Telecommunications Regulation

While state governments have enjoyed greater control over regulating local telephone service providers since 1984, movement toward efficiency-based policy reform (e.g., adoption of competitive markets) has proceeded slowly. We investigate this pattern by addressing how the degree of policy discretion held by state public utility commissions (PUCs) affects reform of local telephone exchange regulation. Using precise measures of both PUC discretion and state policy changes over time, we find that states with "stronger" PUCs (more policymaking authority) are significantly more likely to move toward efficiency-based policy regimes and away from traditional rate-of-return regimes. Greater PUC discretion systematically related to state adoption of efficiency-based reforms over time suggests that regulators are using updated information about policy impacts to inform their policymaking activities. Our findings contradict a common presumption that regulatory bureaucracies are simply motivated by a desire to increase their control over policymaking. Instead, state PUCs are a key source of telecommunications policy reform in the states.     

Neoliberal Capitalism and Conservation in the Post‐crisis Era: The Dialectics of “Green” and “Un‐green” Grabbing in Greece and the UK

“Green‐grabbing”, in which environmental arguments support expropriation of land and resources, is a recognized element in neoliberal conservation. However, capitalism's strategic interest in promoting the neoliberalization of conservation is accompanied by attempts to exploit hitherto protected natures without any pretence at “greenness”. In this paper we explore the dialectics between “green” and “un‐green” grabbing as neoliberal strategies in the reconstruction of nature conservation policies after the 2008 financial “crash” in Greece and the UK. In both countries, accelerated neoliberalization is manifested in diverse ways, including initiatives to roll back conservation regulation, market‐based approaches to “saving” nature and the privatization of public nature assets. The intensification of “green” and “un‐green” grabbing reflects capitalism's strategic interest in both promoting and obstructing nature conservation, ultimately leaving for “protected natures” two choices: either to be further degraded to boost growth or to be “saved” through their deeper inclusion as commodities visible to the market.     

Access to capital markets and the geography of productivity leaders and laggards

This paper examines whether access to the capital market of convertible and nonconvertible bonds affects total factor productivity (TFP) for the population of Italian joint stock manufacturing companies, based in highly segmented local financial markets, between 2007 and 2017. The hypothesis, well grounded in the literature, is that long-term capital favors investment in intangibles and other risky assets necessary for productivity growth. To identify this effect, we exploit the exogenous shock of the Italian banking deregulation of the mid-1990s as an instrument for firm-level access to capital, interacted with distance from logistic networks. These reforms changed the distribution of the type of branches at the local level, increasing the share of joint stock banks, which have high connections to international capital markets. This geographical reallocation of banking activities ultimately affected firms' financial structure, favouring their access to capital, even when based in peripheral financial areas. Firms which issued instruments of market debt achieved higher levels of productivity and a higher probability to reach top percentiles of productivity distribution.     

Source water protection in a landscape of 'New Era' deregulation

The concept of source water protection (SWP) has gained prominence in the water resource literature. SWP consists of watershed and groundwater management for the protection of drinking water supplies. The logic behind SWP is that it is easier, cheaper and safer to protect a drinking water source from contamination than it is to remediate after contamination. SWP is largely a regulatory activity, requiring provincial government policy commitments. This research investigates the degree to which recent provincial deregulation plays a role in constraining SWP implementation at the local water utility level. The research was undertaken in British Columbia (BC) where, after 2001, the provincial government advanced widespread 'New Era' deregulation of social and environmental legislation. The apparent contradiction between government deregulation and government commitment to safe drinking water is interrogated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and document review in the Okanagan Basin. This article reveals that New Era deregulation initiatives have constrained local efforts to implement SWP on the ground. This article recommends that a single provincial agency should oversee drinking water in BC and that greater attention be given to regional governance for drinking water management in the Okanagan Basin.     

A critical physical geography of no-till agriculture: Linking degraded environmental quality to conservation policies in an Oregon watershed

A variety of agricultural conservation trends have gained and lost favour throughout the years, with farm bills in the United States often influencing which conservation practices are implemented. This paper explores the consequences of a set of conservation techniques loosely defined as “no-till agriculture,” focusing on their implementation and adoption since 1985, at which point such approaches began to be explicitly encouraged under US Farm Bill soil conservation mandates. We begin by noting a core contradiction that has characterized these approaches in the Fifteenmile Watershed of Wasco County, Oregon, where despite high rates of farmer enrollment in no-till programs, both no-till agriculture and sustained tillage have led to the increased use of herbicides and sustained sediment runoff. Using a critical physical geography framework that integrates intensive physical field data collection, spatial analysis, social surveys, and interviews, we address the biophysical and social factors collectively driving changes in herbicide use and variable erosion estimates. We draw particular attention to how farm bill support for no-till has enrolled farmers in a vaguely defined and underregulated conservation practice that may ultimately undermine environmental quality.     

Agricultural policy in Australia: deregulation,bipartisanship and agrarian sentiment

This paper provides an overview of the development of agricultural policy in Australia from a complex web of government intervention in the sector in the first half of the 20th century to the deregulation of the past 40 years. It highlights the close interrelationship between agricultural policy and manufacturing policy as well as the areas in which agricultural policy has been distinctive, namely the largely bipartisan nature of agricultural policy development and the strong cultural attachment across the community to farmers in general and family farming in particular. Recent policy debates suggest that agricultural policy will remain a sector apart in terms of the broadly bipartisan nature of policy and the ongoing influence of non-economic considerations. Australia will retain its comparative advantage in agricultural exports into the future and policymakers will need to continue to balance policies that support the economic performance of the sector with those that reflect community expectations of support for the farming community more broadly.     

Revisiting trade and industry policy

This paper introduces some of the recurrent themes of industry policy and debates about what governments can, might and should do – as well as have done – to foster desired patterns of economic development in a market economy. It does so by way of introduction to the four papers on Australian industry policy that make up this symposium.