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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Enrico Cantoni; Vincent Pons; Jérôme Schäfer |
| Abstract: | In recent years, voter ID laws and convenience voting have generated heated partisan debates. To shed light on these policy issues, we survey the recent evidence on the institutional determinants and effects of voter turnout and broaden the perspective beyond the most debated rules. We begin by discussing the importance of electoral participation both for its consequences on policy choices and for democratic legitimacy. Building on a simple cost-benefit model of voting, we then review (quasi)-experimental work studying the effects of voting procedures and of other election rules. Voting procedures (which determine how people vote) primarily affect the cost of participation. The obstacles they create matter more when they occur ahead of the election, when the stakes are not salient (e.g., voter registration requirements), and less when parties mobilize voters against them and when alternative ways to vote exist (e.g., when people can choose whether to vote by mail or in person). Election rules upstream from the election (such as campaign finance laws) and downstream (such as the use of proportional representation vs. plurality rule to map vote choices into a set of election winners) mostly operate through benefits, for instance by affecting electoral competitiveness and the number of candidates. We conclude by highlighting questions for future research. |
| JEL: | D72 D73 J15 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32941 |
| By: | Olivier Marie (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Thomas Post (Maastricht University); Zihan Ye (Zhejiang University of Technology); Xiaopeng Zou (Zhejiang University) |
| Abstract: | The consequences of granting democratic rights to citizens in otherwise authoritarian regimes has been extensively studied. Much less is know about the implications of retracting these rights when a government wants to recentralize power. Autonomous governance in rural China, introduced in the 1980s, has declined over the past two decades. In 2018, the Communist Party promoted a “one head†policy, replacing the dual governance of village chief and party secretary with a single office-holder. We examine the short-term impacts of this policy on voting behavior and political perceptions using a nationally representative survey and election timing as an instrument. Our findings reveal a significant decrease in election turnout in “one head†villages due to reduced competition. However, villagers’ perceptions improve: they report less corruption and greater confidence in local government. This suggests that recentralization was achieved at the cost of electoral involvement but without negative backlash on institutional quality perceptions. |
| Keywords: | Recentralization, dual office-holding, election turnout, political perceptions, rural China |
| JEL: | D72 D73 H77 P3 R28 |
| Date: | 2024–06–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240040 |
| By: | Blumenthal, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | Effectively tackling environmental problems requires the implementation of appropriate policies by politicians. I propose a model of electoral accountability in which voters learn about politicians' policy preferences and environmental policies' appropriateness by observing past policy choices and outcomes. Compared to a benevolent policymaker benchmark, I show that reputational concerns can lead to suboptimal policymaking, as a result of the interdependence between voters' learning about implemented policies and their induced preferences over politicians: when favourable policy outcomes lead voters to prefer policy persistence, the desire to appear responsive can stifle the implementation of the right environmental policy. |
| Date: | 2024–09–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:trn8u |
| By: | Agustín Casas (Universidad CUNEF); Federico Curci (Universidad CUNEF) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as a shock to the anti-Russia attitudes in Spain. We collect data from multiple sources: the Spanish NATO referendumof 1986, monthly public opinion surveys with voting and pro-war attitudes, and the universe of political speeches in the Spanish Congress. Using different empirical strategies we robustly identify the effect of the invasion on domestic politics. The three main results are the following: we show that the Russia-Ukraine conflict increased by around 5 percentage points the current intention to vote for the main center-right party (Partido Popular–PP) among the individuals in the municipalities that strongly supported NATO in the 1986 referendum. Similarly, in those municipalities, individuals have lower “sympathy” for Russia and a stronger perception of the country as a military threat. Finally, the increase in the voting intention for the PP goes hand in hand with the legislators’ narrative in Congress: after the invasion, PP legislators are more likely to mention Russia in their speeches, and when they do, they talk more negatively about it. |
| Keywords: | Public Opinion, International Organizations, NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:337 |
| By: | Dawit Z. Assefa (Hult International Business School, London, UK); Alfonsina Iona (School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London); Leone Leonida (King’s Business School, King’s College) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between political competition and financial development across a global sample of 127 countries, with a particular focus on developed and democratic OECD countries. Building on the theoretical frameworks of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) and Besley et al. (2010), we explore whether political competition impacts financial development in a non-monotonic or monotonic manner. Using robust measures of financial development that capture both the depth and efficiency of the financial sector, we find a U-shaped relationship between political competition and financial development in the full sample, consistent with the political replacement effect of Acemoglu and Robinson. This result suggests that financial development is promoted when political competition is either very low or very high, but hindered at intermediate levels of competition. In contrast, we observe an S-shaped relationship in OECD countries, indicating that political competition at intermediate levels is particularly conducive to financial development in developed democracies. These findings provide new insights into the nuanced role political competition plays in shaping financial systems, challenging the assumption that more political competition always leads to greater financial development. Our results are robust to a range of estimation techniques and alternative measures of political competition and financial development. |
| Keywords: | Financial Development, Institutions, Democracy, Political Competition |
| JEL: | F36 O17 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:981 |
| By: | Besley, Timothy; Dray, Sacha |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the link between trust in government, policymaking and compliance. It focuses on a specific channel whereby citizens who are convinced of the merits of a policy are more motivated to comply with it. This, in turn, reduces the government's cost of implementing this policy and may also increase the set of feasible interventions. As a result, state effectiveness is greater when citizens trust their government. The paper discusses alternative approaches to modelling the origins of trust, especially the link to the design of political institutions. We then provide empirical evidence consistent with the model's findings that compliance is increasing in government trust using the Integrated Values Survey and voluntary compliance during COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. |
| Keywords: | OUP deal |
| JEL: | I18 |
| Date: | 2024–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:122535 |
| By: | Wani, Nassir Ul Haq |
| Abstract: | The study assesses the extent to which Taliban 2.0 utilised social media as a political mobilisation strategy and provides a response through discourse analysis and a literature review. The study results indicate that the tactical use of social media was more apparent in 2021 when they were promoting the notion of their impending return to power and advancing their territorial gains on social media. The Taliban 2.0's utilisation of social media underscores their strategies for comprehending public narratives to present themselves as the legitimate authorities of Afghanistan. The research reveals that the Taliban's utilisation of social media tools enabled them to regain control of Afghanistan by shaping public narratives in their favour. The study is unequivocal in its assertion that Taliban 2.0 must evolve into a political institution that is significantly more democratic and responsive. It is sufficient for it to relinquish the dynastic and undemocratic principles upon which it currently operates. Not only to enhance Afghanistan's governance in general but also to allow for a more favourable opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of the Afghan public. The Taliban 2.0 must transcend their identities to alter the ethnic narrative and eliminate inequalities. For the democratic system to progress in the appropriate direction, the nation requires a genuine and democratic opposition party or parties. The Afghan youth are the primary decision-makers in determining whether Afghanistan's democracy will continue to progress towards impactful growth or vice versa, as long as the Afghan public, particularly the youth and strong regional parties, fails to collaborate and present the electorate with viable and credible strategies against misgovernance and economic reforms that generate employment. This study suggests that young Afghans should be encouraged to develop critical thinking skills to use social media to advocate for their rights and convey dissent, as a means of communicating with the current government. |
| Keywords: | Social Contract, Political Participation, Taliban, Perspectives, Public Perception |
| JEL: | H4 H42 H7 N8 |
| Date: | 2023–07–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121874 |
| By: | Henderson, J. Vernon; Su, Dongling; Zhang, Qinghua; Zheng, Siqi |
| Abstract: | Over the last forty years, China has experienced extraordinary growth under output market reforms, but the growth rates are now tapering off. Reforms in factor markets and city governance have been much slower and are viewed as having the potential to yield considerable efficiency gains. In this paper, we explore this possibility, tackling the key issues of local political manipulation of land markets and objectives of local leaders, constraints on the local budgetary process to finance infrastructure and capital market favoritism of certain cities. We use a structural general equilibrium model with trade and migration frictions, based on prefecture level data. We model the political process of land misallocation within cities which drives up housing prices and estimate city-by-city local leaders’ preferences over economic performance versus residents’ welfare. Counterfactual analysis shows that equalizing capital prices across cities, changing the political scorecard for city leaders to reward just maximization of local consumer welfare, and relaxing local budget constraints together increase welfare of consumers and returns to capital by 13.7% and 2.25% respectively. Housing prices would decline in almost all cities; and the reforms would reduce the current excessive, often showcase investment in local public infrastructure by 49% nationally. These reforms would significantly reduce the population of favored cities with low capital costs like Tianjin and Beijing and raise the population of cities with high costs of capital and low local-leader weights on consumer welfare like Shenzhen and Dongguan. |
| JEL: | R14 J01 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2022–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124874 |
| By: | Lamare, J. Ryan; Benton, Richard A.; Tabarani, Patricia Michel |
| Abstract: | The authors investigate how race and political partisanship affected variations in workplace and non-workplace mobility at three COVID-19 phases—lockdown (2020), reopening (2021), and endemic COVID (2022). They theorize that structural racism compelled relatively greater workplace mobility rates in Black communities during lockdown, and reduced Black workplace mobility during reopening and endemic COVID. By contrast, they posit elite-level anti-science skepticism and its amplification resulted in Trump-voting communities experiencing relatively higher workplace and non-workplace mobility rates than non-Trump-voting areas throughout the pandemic. Regressions primarily using county-level Google Mobility Reports data support the hypotheses, conditioning on state-level fixed effects and county-level urbanity, COVID job-type sorting, demographics, and socioeconomics. The county-level results are complemented by outcomes from novel individual-level COVID lockdown survey data, helping connect the proposed individual-level mechanisms to the county-level findings. The authors conclude that work mobility during COVID was racialized and politicized, offering empirical insights into how systematic disadvantages can lead to increased and unequal precarity during periods of acute economic or social crisis. |
| Keywords: | COVID; economic inequality; political polarization; race and ethnicity; work mobility |
| JEL: | J50 J1 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125302 |