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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Dreher, Axel; Yu, Shu |
| Abstract: | We study whether national leaders' foreign education influences their foreign policy, measured by voting behavior at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). We hypothesize that "affinity"' - pre-existing or developed while studying abroad - makes leaders with foreign education more likely to vote with their host country. At the same time, such leaders need to show sufficient distance to their host country and demonstrate "allegiance"' to their own one, which will reduce voting coincidence. To test this theory we make use of data on the educational background of 831 leaders and the voting affinity between the countries they govern and those in which they studied. Over the 1975-2011 period, we find that foreign-educated leaders are less likely to vote in line with their host countries but more likely to vote in line with (other) G7 countries. We identify the causal effect of "allegiance" by investigating the differential effect of foreign education on voting in pre-election years compared to other years. The difference-in-difference-like results show that G7-educated leaders vote less in line with their host countries when facing an election. Overall, both "allegiance" and "affinity" affect foreign policy. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Education; leaders; United Nations General Assembly voting |
| JEL: | D78 F51 F53 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11450&r=pol |
| By: | Frye, Timothy; Borisova, Ekaterina |
| Abstract: | How do flawed elections and post-election protest shape political attitudes? Taking advantage of the largely exogenous variation in the timing of a survey conducted in Moscow, we examine the short-term impact of the parliamentary election of December 4th, and the large protest of December 10th on trust in the Russian government. The fraud-marred parliamentary election had little effect on attitudes toward government, perhaps because allegations of vote improprieties were not new information. In contrast, the large protest of December 10th increased trust in government. Heightened trust arises largely from non-supporters of the ruling party updating their beliefs rather than from social desirability bias, a perceived improvement in government performance, or a “halo” effect. This finding is consistent with the view that autocrats can increase trust in government by unexpectedly allowing protest without repression. It also suggests that when evaluating trust in government citizens may cue not off the content of the protest, but off the holding of the protest itself. |
| Keywords: | trust in government, protest, elections, partisanship |
| JEL: | P26 D72 |
| Date: | 2016–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2016_009&r=pol |
| By: | Santanu Gupta; Raghbendra Jha |
| Abstract: | In a probabilistic voting model with three jurisdictions and residents with different incomes, we analyze inefficiencies in local public good allocation that emerge from trying to satisfy the median voter. The median voter and the rich may gain but the poor lose out. We analyze a uniform tax rate and progressive two and three bracket tax structures. If the government extracts part of tax revenues as political rents and maximizes expected payoff there is a possibility of taxing away all private income with no allocation of public good, if electoral uncertainty is high, especially when the government is risk neutral. |
| Keywords: | median voter, local public good, income redistribution |
| JEL: | H11 H50 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2016-13&r=pol |
| By: | Guriev, Sergei; Treisman, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Why are some governments popular with their citizens while others get low approval ratings? International surveys show enormous variation both across countries and over time. In what we believe to be the first systematic, global, comparative study of political approval, we examine a panel of government ratings from 128 countries including both democracies and authoritarian states, over the years 2005-2014. We find that good economic performance is robustly correlated with higher approval in both democracies and non-democracies. Approval is also higher in the year of a presidential election in both types of regimes. In non-democracies, information matters: greater press freedom and internet penetration result in lower approval while internet censorship is associated with higher approval; these variables have no impact on approval in democracies. We did not find any clear relationship with repression, suggesting that if fear inflates ratings in non-democracies this may be offset by the dissatisfaction that repression also causes. |
| JEL: | P16 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11460&r=pol |
| By: | Bouton, Laurent; Lizzeri, Alessandro; Persico, Nicola |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a dynamic political-economic model of total government obligations. Its focus is on the interplay between debt and entitlements. In our model, both are tools by which temporarily powerful groups can extract resources from groups that will be powerful in the future: debt transfers resources across periods; entitlements directly target the future allocation of resources. We prove five main results. First, debt and entitlement are strategic substitutes in the sense that constraining debt increases entitlements (and vice versa). Second, if entitlements are unconstrained, it is sometimes beneficial not to constrain debt (even in the absence of shocks that require smoothing). Third, if debt is unconstrained, it is beneficial to limit entitlements but not to eliminate them. Fourth, debt and entitlements respond in opposite ways to political instability and, in contrast with prior literature, political instability may even reduce debt when entitlements are endogenous. Finally, we identify a possible explanation for the joint growth of debt and entitlements. |
| Keywords: | entitlement programs; fiscal rules; Government Debt; political economy |
| JEL: | D72 E62 H60 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11459&r=pol |
| By: | Laurent Bouton; Alessandro Lizzeri; Nicola Persico |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a dynamic political-economic model of total government obligations. Its focus is on the interplay between debt and entitlements. In our model, both are tools by which temporarily powerful groups can extract resources from groups that will be powerful in the future: debt transfers resources across periods; entitlements directly target the future allocation of resources. We prove five main results. First, debt and entitlement are strategic substitutes in the sense that constraining debt increases entitlements (and vice versa). Second, if entitlements are unconstrained, it is sometimes welfare-improving to relax debt constraints, even in the absence of shocks that require smoothing. This is because borrowing constraints lead to higher entitlement spending and reduces overall provision of public goods. Third, equilibrium entitlements are excessive from a utilitarian perspective because they transfer resources to powerful agents who are already in a privileged position. However, very tight constraints in entitlements limit agents' opportunities to smooth consumption. Fourth, debt and entitlements respond in opposite ways to political instability and, in contrast with prior literature, political instability may even reduce debt when entitlements are endogenous. Finally, we identify a possible explanation for the joint growth of debt and entitlements. |
| JEL: | D72 E62 H60 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22570&r=pol |
| By: | Herrera, Helios; Llorente-Saguer, Aniol; McMurray, Joseph C. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a rational model of voter participation by generalizing a common-value model of costless voting to include not just pivotal voting but also marginal voting incentives. A new strategic incentive for abstention arises in that case, to avoid the marginal voter's curse of pushing the policy outcome in the wrong direction. The marginal voter's curse presents a larger disincentive for voting than the swing voter's curse. Moreover, marginal motivations are shown to dominate pivotal motivations in large elections. Model predictions are confirmed in a laboratory experiment and applied in a comparative analysis of electoral rules. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; information aggregation; Turnout; Underdog effect |
| JEL: | C72 C92 D70 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11463&r=pol |
| By: | Oliver Vanden Eynde; Alexander Moradi; Patrick M. Kuhn |
| Abstract: | Using a panel of 6,784 Kenyan police officers, we show how the rise of ethnic politics encroached on their daily behavior during Kenya's independence period (1957-1970). We find a significant deterioration in discipline after Kenya's first multiparty election in 1961 for those police officers of ethnic groups associated with the dominant KANU party. These effects are not driven by the selection of policemen, as individual officers change their behavior when their ethnic group gains political power. While we find no evidence of favoritism within the police, we show that shocks to political dominance can still change attitudes and job performance. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2016-21&r=pol |
| By: | Tetsuo Ono (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University); Yuki Uchida (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | This study considers public education policy and its impact on growth and wel- fare across generations. In particular, the study compares two scal perspectives| tax nance and debt nance|and shows that in a competitive equilibrium context, the growth and utility in the debt- nance case could be higher than those in the tax- nance case in the long run. However, the opposite occurs when the policy is shaped by politics. When the degree of parents' altruism is low, they choose debt nance in their voting, despite its long-run worse performance because a current generation can pass the cost of debt repayment to future generations. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, Human capital, Public debt, Political equilib- rium |
| JEL: | D70 E24 H63 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1601r&r=pol |
| By: | Sam Fankhauser; Caterina Gennaioli; Murray Collins |
| Abstract: | Climate change is now a major aspect of public policy. There are almost 500 identified climate change laws in the world’s leading economies. This paper reviews the main domestic factors that drive this legislation. The analysis is based on a unique dataset of climate legislation in 66 national jurisdictions for the period 1990–2013. We find that the passage of new climate laws is influenced by several factors. One important factor is the quantity and quality of previous legislation: the propensity to pass more laws decreases non-linearly with the stock of existing legislation, but increases in the presence of a strategic “flagship law” that sets an overall framework for climate policy. Contrary to widespread belief, political orientation is not a decisive factor. We find no significant difference in the number of laws passed by left-wing and right-wing governments, except perhaps in Anglo-Saxon countries. However, left-leaning governments are more inclined to pass laws in difficult economic times. Despite these elements of bipartisanship, political economy factors still matter: In democracies climate laws are less likely to be passed immediately before an election and legislation is aided by a strong executive that can take on vested interests. |
| Keywords: | climate change legislation; climate politics; political economy |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:63352&r=pol |
| By: | Bannikova, Marina; Jelnov, Artyom |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a model of a legislature, formed by several parties, which have to vote for or against a certain bill in the presence of a lobbyist who is interested in a certain outcome of the vote. We show that the ease of manipulating a legislature decision by the lobbyist is increasing with the number of parties. A high threshold leads to fewer parties represented, and consequently, decreases the ease of changing a legislature decision by the lobbyist. On the other hand, a high threshold may cause a misrepresentation of voters. We show that if the threshold is higher that 6%, the impact of the misrepresentation effect becomes significant. |
| Keywords: | Ciències polítiques -- Presa de decisions, Partits polítics, Grups de pressió, 32 - Política, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/266572&r=pol |