Status Quo Policy Research Articles

Use of Gaming Procedures in Evaluation of Management Experiments

Management often involves debate about whether to maintain some conservative, status quo policy or to experiment with some risky alternative that may produce higher long-term value. In comparing such alternatives, a key modelling problem is to predict the transient response pattern that will occur if an experimental approach is adopted but is not successful (stock collapses or fails to recover, enhancement makes no net conributution to catches, etc.), in terms of how long it will take to detect and react to the failure. Prediction of such transients involves modelling not only future data gathering and statistical analysis, but also how future managers will react to the information. Management gaming involving real managers may be the simplest and most efficient way to make such predictions. Application of gaming procedures to fisheries development and hatchery production examples indicates that such procedures may not only help in prediction, but also are useful for management training and clarification of objectives and priorities.

Institutional features of congressional decisions: The fight to prohibit smoking on airlines

A pervasive theme of the congressional politics literature is that the committee system is fundamental in determining the policy status quo. Such an assertion hinges crucially upon committees controlling their jurisdictions; congressional delegation is undermined if a committee can assert authority over any issue domain at any time. Yet, representatives may possess an incentive to support a policy proposal that would change the status quo, even if it entails disregarding procedures. Indeed, standard conceptualizations of how members of Congress make their voting choices assume that only the benefits and costs associated with a policy matter, and they do not consider institutional factors such as whether a bill emerged from the correct committee.

Structural change and openness: Strategic alternatives in the Argentine economy

A nonlinear dynamic input-output model is used to analyze the recent development and future prospects of the Argentine economy. Historical model simulation shows low efficiency of investment as one proximate cause of economic stagnation. Status quo (low-investment-efficiency) policy simulations of debt moratorium and “living off our means” indicate the magnitude of the inertia and ineffectiveness of structural policy in such an environment, respectively. The last policy experiments assume a changed economic environment and “normal” investment efficiency. The first type of environment is “closed”, with economies searching for maximal self-sufficiency and autonomy. Growth and structural malleability are high in this context. Growth is not reduced by a stipulated income redistribution policy. The second type of environment is “open,” with structural transformation oriented towards maximal welfare growth. This case gives rise to the fastest growth; output and export patterns vary in favor of the dynamically most efficient activities. When confronted with frictions or restrictions, “openness” no longer leads to the most rapid growth, and the resulting changes in output and trade patterns are limited.

Korea-US Security Relations in the 1990s: A Creative Adjustment

The security policy of the ROK since 1950 has been based upon US commitment to South Korea`s defense by providing military and economic aid to the ROK, and for the last 38 years keeping US troops in Korea against another Northern attack. However, in view of new conditions and variables confronting the Sixth Republic of Korea, it has become an imperative to take new perceptions and attitudes with regard to the US troop withdrawal issue and to pursue a new security policy towards North Korea. In the broad context of ROK security thinking as far as the US troop issue is concerned, there appear to be three schools of thought-a status quo policy, anti-status quo or revolutionary, and a gradualist view. For those who support a status quo policy, the presence of the US troops in Korea is a prerequisite for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has maintained an anti-status quo policy by demanding that US troops be withdrawn from South Korea. In the North`s view, the presence of US troops is the basic obstacle to inter-Korean dialogue and Korean unification. The gradualist view seeks to break the current stalemate in inter-Korean dialogue. This view holds that the Seoul government should seriously consider the long-term strategic planning about US troop withdrawal issues and have serious discussions on this issue with the US Government. At the same time, the US should seriously consider transferring its operational rights to the ROK. Seoul may then consider convening South-North Korean military talks as suggested by North Korea. In short, the ROK should seek its security by improving and normalizing relations with North Korea in the 1990s. The ROK should be prepared for US ground troop withdrawal in the future, to be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the North Korean Government. The rational for this argument is based upon: first. that the ROK will not and should not expect US troops to stay permanently on the Korean peninsula. Second, should the US troops in Korea be pulled out abruptly in the future, the South Korean Government would lose an opportunity to use the US troop withdrawal issue as a political leverage in dealing with North Korea. Third, various conditions seem to be right for such an initiative, Lastly, it is unlikely that North Korea would attempt to use military force against the South.

Technology and the Constitution

Technology policy is an idea whose time has come. It has touched a responsive chord in the body politic in the face of the Japanese business challenge. It is provoking debates in Congress and the media as to the best modus operandi, and everyone seems to have a checklist of ideas that are important. Debates are focusing on status quo versus national industrial policy, yet a third option is apparent, that of a fourth or technological branch of government. These options are discussed, and the third may be the compromise people are searching for.

Fundamental economic comparisons of solid waste policy options

This paper examines the sources of externalities associated with post-consumer waste. A paradigm economy is constructed to compare the market and real income effects of disposal charges, recycling subsidies, user fees, and litter taxes with those of the status quo policy. The supply and demand equations of the general equilibrium system are derived and simulations are performed for each policy. Under certain assumptions, including zero transactions costs, it is concluded that real income can be maximized with a disposal charge policy, which is also the only innovative policy to assure no reduction of real income compared to the status quo, regardless of production technologies. User fees and litter taxes are found to be the next most desirable; and recycling subsidies, the least.

Interview with Richard R. Fagen

INTERVIEW WITH _ RICHARD R. FAGEN Richard R. Fagen is GildredProfessor ofLatin American Studies at Stanford University and the author of numerous publications on Latin America. His firsthand experience in the area has included resident teaching assignments in both Chile and Mexico, and five visits to Nicaragua during and after the insurrection ofJune-July 1979. In the following interview, conducted in February and May 1981, Professor Fagen discussed changing conditions in the Caribbean Basin countries and U.S. policy interests in the region. Questioning Professor Fagen was Kathryn Waters, a 1981 SAIS graduate in Latin American studies and member ofthe SAIS Review staff. SAIS Review: In your book, Latin America and the United States: The Changing Political Realities,'you argue that the United States has continued to maintain an interventionistpolicy towardLatinAmerica, albeit in a more subtle form than overt military action. Do you think that the Carter administration made any incremental steps toward a less statusquo policy in the Caribbean area? FAGEN: If by a less status-quo policy you mean that they did things that encouraged or resulted in certain changes, the answer is "yes." Certainly in Nicaragua, the fact that they disassociated themselves, finally, from the Somoza regime was clearly a change in the status quo. In other cases, for instance with respect to Cuba, after an initial flurry ofspeculation that something would be done to change the relationship with Cuba, they did nothing. Ifanything, they toughened up. So it really depends on what country, or even what time, we are talking about. SAIS Review: I was thinkingprimarily ofhow you described the history of U.S. policy as being status-quo oriented in wanting to maintain dominance in the hemisphere; for instance, despite the disassociation 1 Richard R. Fagen and Julio Cotler (Eds.), LatinAmericaand the United States: The Changing Political Realities (Stanford, CaI.: Stanford University Press, 1974). 49 50 SAIS REVIEW with Somoza, that the United States would still try to wield influence in the Nicaraguan arena. FAGEN: Oh, absolutely. I think that the Carter administration didn't make a dramatic break with the long tradition of attempts to exercise U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean Basin. That's perfectly obvious in the El Salvadoran situation where the Carter administration was profoundly interventionist. It essentially shaped the first junta in the fall of 1979, and of course continued to turn, or at least tried to turn, that particular sow's ear into a silk purse. SAIS Review: The increased incidence ofarmed confrontation and revolution in Central America and the Caribbean in the last two years seems to reflect a demand for radical change from intolerable conditions. Have the transitions in Grenada and Nicaragua, and earlier in Cuba, encouraged guerrilla activity elsewhere in the Caribbean such as El Salvador? What conditions determine the success or failure of offensives directed against a government in power? FAGEN: Well, as to the first part ofthe question, it's clear that successful insurgencies and revolutionary activity ofthe sort that was carried on in Nicaragua give heart to similar movements elsewhere. There's little enough to cheer about from the viewpoint of the left, and when something like Nicaragua happens it gives heart to people struggling against various forms ofoppression in other places. As to the second part ofthe question, it depends on what one means by "encouraged guerrilla activity." Ifone means that in the sense, for instance, that those in the U. S. government, in the media, in academic life, and elsewhere mean when they see the "hand of the Cubans" and the "hand of the Nicaraguans " behind every insurgent movement, then the answer has to be "No." In fact, what is striking about the tumultuous Caribbean Basin is how little overt and demonstrated Cuban- and Nicaraguan-inspired guerrilla activity there is. One of the things that many people in Washington have trouble believing is that insurgent movements are basically nationalistic and indigenous movements, and that it doesn't take a Nicaragua or a Cuba to make those movements come into being or to sustain themselves. SAIS Review: Would you say that the publicity about boats with arms and men landing in El Salvador from Nicaragua was exaggerated or misinterpreted by government people...