In this paper I apply the nonparametric methods proposed by Quah to data on US state relative income levels. In contrast to Quah's results using cross-country data I find no evidence of polarization in the cross-state income distribution. The long-run density implied by the estimates is strongly unimodal. This finding is consistent with the results of previous analyses of convergence in state income levels using other methods.

We develop a model of bargaining and litigation in the context of patent licensing (or any contractual setting). Following Priest and Klein (1984) we developed a model that explicitly allows for (1) multiple parties (leading to asymmetry of stakes), (2) binding precedent, and (3) pre-dispute bargaining done in the "shadow" of precedent-setting courts. The pre-dispute bargaining creates an endogenous opportunity cost of litigation for both plaintiff and defendant; i.e., the harm is endogenous. We show that the effects of asymmetric stakes on the litigation rate and plaintiff win rate are offset by opportunity costs (forgone licensing). That is, the degree of asymmetry does not appear to substantially impact the rate of litigation or the observed win rate of plaintiffs at trial. This result is in stark contrast to the previous theoretical literature, and has implications for interpreting the empirical literature.

Poole and Rosenthal (1997) argue that most congressional voting can be understood in terms of a low-dimensional spatial model. This paper uses their model to assess the importance of the two mechanisms that could contribute to the vote-predicting power of constituency variables: (i) constituency variables may predict where legislators fall along one or two dimensions in the vote-predicting spatial model and (ii) constituency variables may account for errors in the spatial model's predictions. The paper compares different methods of using a basic set of constituency variables to generate out-of-sample predictions for representatives' votes. The analysis covers a large number of recent House roll call votes, considering Democrats and Republicans separately and using Poole and Rosenthal's W-NOMINATE scores to measure legislators' locations in vote-predicting space. The results show that the predictive power of a basic set of constituency variables arises principally from its ability to predict representatives' locations in Poole and Rosenthal's space, not from its ability to explain errors in the predictions based on that space. This holds true to a remarkable extent, consistent with Poole and Rosenthal's argument that the influence of constituent interests occurs largely through logrolling mechanisms reflected in their spatial model.

The conventional wisdom is that postwar economic growth has been unpredictable. In the 1960s few observers accurately forecast which countries would grow quickly. In this paper we show that indexes of social development constructed in the early 1960s have considerable predictive power. These results indicate the importance of "social capability" for economic growth. We emphasize that social arrangements matter for reasons beyond those discussed in recent work on trust and social capital. However,we are also able to show that one of the indexes may be a useful proxy for social capital in developing countries.

This paper investigates the relationship between congressional support for foreign aid and the distribution of USAID contract spending across congressional districts within the United States. The extent to which such a relationship matters has become increasingly important in recent years, as the end of the Cold War and the advent of the Republican-controlled Congress have eroded the traditional base of support for foreign aid. We develop a model to illustrate how the distribution of contract spending could be used to increase support for foreign aid, but at the expense of development impact, in effect trading quality for quantity. Data on domestic foreign aid contract spending and votes in the 104th Congress House of Representatives allow us to test if the geographic distribution of USAID contract spending within the United States is consistent with a systematic attempt to build support for foreign aid in Congress. Econometric results provide little evidence of such attempts, apparently because voting on this issue is insensitive to the distribution of contract spending.

In rural regions, trained volunteer firefighters and medics provide emergency services, often with considerable personal risk and without financial reward. However, these Volunteers exhibit two different latent orientations: firefighters are more localistic in their outlook than medical volunteers. These latent orientations reflect the structural characteristics of the two emergency service agencies. These orientations are empirically demonstrated to persist in the volunteering and personal attributes of the volunteers themselves. Survey data are incorporated into a probit model to indicate the relative influence of orientational factors on where the volunteers offer their emergency services.

This paper presents an easily implemented test of the assumption of a normally distributed error term for the ordered probit model. As this assumption is the central maintained hypothesis in all estimation and testing based on this model, the test ought to serve as a key specification test in applied research. A small Monte Carlo experiment suggests that the test has good size and power properties.