Richard T. Boylan

Laws of Large Numbers for Dynamical Systems with Randomly Matched Individuals

Biologists and economists have analyzed populations where each individual interacts with randomly selected individuals. The random matching generates a very complicated stochastic system. Consequently biologists and economists have approximated such a system with a deterministic system. The justitication for such an approximation is that the population is assumed to be very large and thus some law of large numbers must hold. This paper gives a characterization of random matching schemes for countably infinite populations. In particular this paper shows that there exists a random matching scheme such that the stochastic system and the deterministic system are the same. Finally, we show that if the process lasts finitely many periods and if the population is large enough then the deterministic model offers a good approximation of the stochastic model. In doing so we make precise what we mean by population, matching process, and evolution of the population.

Measuring Public Corruption in the American States: A Survey of State House Reporters

We use a survey of State House reporters to measure corruption in state government and assess the priority federal prosecutors place on corruption investigations. The reliability and validity of the corruption measures are assessed, as are the relationships among corruption level, federal prosecutorial effort, and the number of federal prosecutions. Federal corruption prosecutions are positively correlated with both corruption and prosecutorial effort. Hence, we argue that federal prosecution data provide a potentially biased and unreliable measure of state public corruption.

Salaries, Turnover, and Performance in the Federal Criminal Justice System*

The effect of salaries on turnover and performance is analyzed for U.S. attorneys in office during the years 1969 through 1999. Lower salaries are shown to increase the turnover of U.S. attorneys, and higher turnover is shown to reduce output. Two features distinguish U.S. attorneys (chief federal prosecutors) from other public‐ and private‐sector employees. First, since 1977, U.S. attorney salaries have been tied to the salaries of members of Congress and are thus exogenously determined. Second, there are public measures for the output of U.S. attorneys. Both features simplify the study of the effect of salaries on turnover and performance.

Salaries, Plea Rates, and the Career Objectives of Federal Prosecutors*

We examine the relation between local labor markets and the behavior of federal prosecutors. Empirical evidence is provided that assistant U.S. attorneys in districts with high private salaries are more likely to take cases to trial than are assistants in districts with low private salaries. We explain this finding as follows. In high‐salary districts, government salaries are not competitive relative to the private sector. Therefore, federal prosecutor positions are sought by individuals who want the trial experience needed to secure desired private‐sector employment. The following additional evidence further supports this explanation. First, the turnover of assistant U.S. attorneys is higher in high‐private‐salary districts than in low‐private‐salary districts. Second, individuals who leave their employment as assistant U.S. attorneys are of higher quality in districts with higher private‐lawyer salaries. Third, assistant U.S. attorneys with more trial experience are more likely to take positions in large private law firms.

Political distortions in state forecasts

This study provides evidence that political incentives lead state budget officials to make biased forecasts. Specifically, the budget in the year that ends right before an election is based on overly optimistic forecasts. Similarly, the budget that starts right before an election is also based on optimistic forecasts. These biases are even larger if the incumbent party is more likely to lose the gubernatorial election. Accordingly, budget deficits are

An optimal auction perspective on lobbying

27 per capita higher in election years and

Voting over investment

26 per capita higher the following year.

The Effect of Punishment Severity on Plea Bargaining

Abstract. The lobbying process has been described as an auction (see, for instance, Bernheim and Whinston [4]). While the auction rules picked are supposed to be descriptive, they vary from author to author. Examples show that these different auction rules make different predictions of what policy is the outcome of the lobbying process. Further, which proposed auction rule is the most preferred by the government official depends on the preferences of lobbies.¶ If off-the-equilibrium negative contributions (i.e., contributions from the government official to lobbies) are possible, there is a best possible auction for the government official. Such an auction leads to the same policy as in [4], although contributions are higher. If negative contributions are not possible, the government official is made worse off. It follows that since the auction rules used in the literature to describe lobbying do not allow negative contributions, none of them are optimal from the government officials perspective.

Private Bills: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Lobbying

Abstract The effect that differences in economic systems have on capital accumulation is analyzed in a growth model where individuals have different endowments and different time preferences. The economic systems differ in whether government or the private sector select investment levels. Government is not modeled as a benevolent dictator who maximizes a welfare function, but is instead modeled as a democratic process. The outcome of the democratic process depends on the voting rules. Majority vote equilibria lead to less capital accumulation than would result if investment decisions were made by the private sector or if the investment decisions were made by a welfare-maximizing dictator. Super-majority equilibria — more specifically outcomes in the minmax set — lead instead to a Pareto-efficient capital accumulation.

The Sources of Agency: An Empirical Examination of United States Attorneys

This study examines whether criminal suspects facing more severe punishments are more likely to go to trial. Sample selection makes it difficult to obtain valid proxies for severity; for instance, I expect severity to be positively related to the prosecutor’s decision to indict, to indict in federal court (versus state court), and to try the suspect. Theoretical and empirical findings indicate that in samples containing only indicted, convicted, or tried suspects, reasonable proxies for severity may be negatively related to actual severity. The assignment of defendants to judges randomizes the severity of punishment in a manner that is unrelated to sample selection. Thus, by examining the effect of these assignments, I find that a 10-month increase in prison sentences raises trial rates by 1 percentage point.