|
on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Mechtel, Mario; Potrafke, Niklas |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how electoral motives and government ideology influence active labor market policies (ALMP). We present a model that explains how politicians strategically use ALMP to generate political cycles in unemployment and the budget deficit. Election-motivated politicians increase ALMP spending before elections irrespective of their party ideology. Leftwing politicians spend more on ALMP than rightwing politicians. We test the hypotheses derived from our model using German state data from 1985:1 to 2004:11. The results suggest that ALMP (job-creation schemes) were pushed before elections. |
| Keywords: | active labor market policies, political cycles, labor market expenditures, opportunistic politicians, partisan politicians |
| JEL: | J08 E62 H72 H61 P16 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:22780&r=pol |
| By: | Dan Usher (Queen's University) |
| Abstract: | One votes from self-interest or from a sense of duty. Voting from self-interest requires there to be some chance, however small, that one’s vote swings the outcome of an election from one political party to another. This paper is a discussion of three models of what that chance might be: the common sense model inferring the probability of a tied vote today from the distribution of outcomes in past elections, person-to-person randomization where each voter looks upon the rest of the electorate as analogous to drawings from an urn with given proportions of red and blue balls, and nation-wide randomization where voters are lined up according to their preferences for one party or the other but where chance shifts the entire schedule of preferences up or down. Emphasis is on the third model about which the paper may have something new to say. Nation-wide randomization may be helpful in connecting private benefits from a win for one’s preferred party with a duty to vote, and in comparing the pros and cons of compulsory voting. |
| Keywords: | Pivital voting, Duty to vote, compulsory voting |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1238&r=pol |
| By: | Ian J. Bateman (Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia); Diane P. Dupont (Department of Economics, Brock University) |
| Abstract: | Previous literature has found that politically conservative individuals express a lower willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental goods than left-wing supporters. Using data from three surveys valuing water we investigate the role of context by evaluating whether the means of provision (public or private) matters. While left-wing voters have higher WTP for publically provided public goods, right-wing voters have a higher WTP when a good is privately provided. Our findings have implications for values typically obtained for environmental public goods using survey data from constructed markets since scenarios typically describe improvements as being publically provided. |
| Keywords: | stated preference, public provision, private provision, valuation, political affiliation, water |
| JEL: | Q51 Q25 H41 H42 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brk:wpaper:1003&r=pol |
| By: | Emma Aisbett |
| Abstract: | One of the enduring themes of the globalization debate is whether international law should be strengthened to protect foreign firm from discriminatory host governments, or rather strengthened to protect host governments from powerful multinational firms. This paper uses firm-level data from the World Business Environment Survey (WBES) to lend some empirical evidence to the debate. In doing so it contributes to academic understanding of what a `foreign firm' is, and challenges the notion that institutional superiority makes OECD governments less prone to anti-foreign bias. Although the terms `foreign firm' and `multinational subsidiary' are often used interchangeably, in the WBES data the managers of only about half of the firms with more than ten percent foreign ownership view themselves as part of a multinational. This distinction between multinational and non-multinational foreign firms was important in regression analysis of self-reported influence over government. In non- OECD countries - where we find no evidence of anti-foreign bias - multinationals appear significantly more influential than other firms. Meanwhile, in OECD countries, foreign non-multinationals do appear at a disadvantage in terms of influence relative to domestic firms, but this `liability of foreignness' does not appear to extend to foreign-multinational affiliates. |
| Keywords: | Multinational Firms, Foreign Firms, Political Economy, Government |
| JEL: | F02 F23 F52 P16 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:dpaper:638&r=pol |
| By: | Owen, Ann L.; Conover, Emily; Videras, Julio; Wu, Stephen |
| Abstract: | Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment even if it means restricting individual freedoms. We find evidence that the channel through which weather conditions affect policy preference is via perceptions of the importance of the issue of global warming. Furthermore, individuals who may be more sophisticated consumers of news are less likely to have their attitudes towards global warming changed by current weather conditions. |
| Keywords: | environmental regulation; global warming; environmental attitudes |
| JEL: | Q58 |
| Date: | 2010–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:22787&r=pol |
| By: | Alice N. Sindzingre; Christian Milelli |
| Abstract: | In the literature of development economics, corruption is usually conceived as detrimental to economic growth. This conventional wisdom, however, may be called into question. Many countries witnessed growth despite corruption, e.g., commodity-dependent and high-growth East Asian countries. The paper argues, through a comparison of Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, that the relationships between corruption and economic growth are difficult to demonstrate. It highlights two crucial factors that explain the lack of robustness of this relationship. Firstly, this lack of robustness stems from the methods of measurement, which are usually based on the building of indices, modelling and econometric techniques. These methods are inappropriate for a concept such as ‘corruption’, which refers to complex and heterogeneous phenomena that are difficult to subsume in a single and stable definition. A second set of factors underlying the weakness of the relationship between corruption and growth is the dependence of causal processes on specific contexts. The effects of corrupt practices on an economy depend on its particular history, its economic structures, its political economy and types of institutions: for these reasons, they vary across countries and regions. Causal links between corruption and growth may exist, but they are non-linear and subject to threshold effects. Beyond certain thresholds, which are built by specific contexts (i.e., the combination of many contextual factors, political, economic, institutional), corruption phenomena can be detrimental to growth; before reaching these thresholds, the impact of corruption on growth may be limited. These thresholds can be assessed only ex post: they cannot be measured ex ante, as they precisely depend on contexts that vary across space, countries and history. In some contexts, economic and political factors may reinforce each other, e.g. corruption, political instability, economic distortions and vulnerability, such as commodity-based market structures. This results in ‘low equilibria’ that combine low growth and pervasive corruption, and thresholds, which, once low equilibria are stabilised, it is very difficult to get out from under (‘poverty traps’). In other contexts, these factors may all exist. They remain separated, however; corruption does not combine with other economic and political factors and is contained, which makes it possible for countries not to fall into ‘lower’ equilibria. The state is here the core entity able to prevent the reciprocal reinforcement of corruption and other economic or political structures - and hence the formation of poverty traps -, and to make corruption subservient to growth objectives. This state capacity that can confine and control corruption, which exists in some countries but not in others, is a key factor in the differences in impacts of corruption on growth. |
| Keywords: | corruption, growth, political economy, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia |
| JEL: | O10 O43 K40 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2010-10&r=pol |
| By: | Markus Lampe |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the empirical determinants of the treaty network of the 1860s and 1870s. It makes use of three central theories about the determinants of PTA formation, considering economic fundamentals from neoclassical and ‘new’ trade theory, political-economy variables, and international interaction due to trade diversion fears (dependence of later PTAs on former). These possible determinants are operationalized using a newly constructed dataset for bilateral cooperation and non-cooperation among 13 European Countries and the US. The results of logistic regression analysis show that the treaty network can be explained by a combination of ‘pure’ welfare-oriented economic theory with political economy and international interaction models. |
| Keywords: | Cobden-Chevalier Network, Bilateralism |
| JEL: | A |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cqe:wpaper:1410&r=pol |
| By: | James Rockey |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests that there are consistent patterns in how different groups of individuals perceive their relative ideological position. Using data from a large-scale cross-country survey on individuals views and personal characteristics it compares who reports themselves as being left(right) wing and who on an objective measure are actually left(right) wing. It finds, for example, the more educated on average believe themselves to be more left wing than their actual beliefs on a substantive issue might suggest. |
| Keywords: | Ideology, Voter Preferences |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:09/23&r=pol |
| By: | Pelkonen, P. |
| Abstract: | In this study, a long-term impact of additional schooling at the lower end of the educational distribution is measured on voter turnout. Schooling is instrumented with a staged Norwegian school reform, which increased minimum attainment by two years – from seven to nine. The impact is measured at two levels: individual, and municipality level. Both levels of analysis suggest that the additional education has no effect on the turnout rates. At the individual level, the impact of education is also tested on various measures of civic outcomes. Of these, only the likelihood of signing a petition is positively affected by education. |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/18631/&r=pol |