Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy Of Science, Religion, And Growth, Roland Benabou, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni

Andrea Vindigni

We study the coevolution of religion, science and politics. We first uncover, in international and U.S. data, a robust negative relationship between religiosity and patents per capita. The model then combines: (i) scientific discoveries that raise productivity but sometimes erode religious beliefs; (ii) a government that allows innovations to diffuse, or blocks them; (iii) religious institutions that can invest in doctrinal reform. Three long-term outcomes emerge. The “Western-European Secularization” regime has declining religiosity, unimpeded science, and high taxes and transfers. The “Theocratic” regime involves knowledge stagnation, unquestioned dogma, and high religious-public-goods spending. The “American” regime combines scientific progress and stable …

‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando

Luigi Russi

This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency. The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products. We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel …

Heterodox Challenges To Consumption-Oriented Models Of Legislation, Luigi Russi, John Haskell

Luigi Russi

Consumption-oriented models of governance dominate the contemporary global legal architecture. The financial crisis beginning in 2008, however, poses fundamental questions about the future viability of these approaches to economics and law. This paper attempts to first, evaluate consumptionÕs salient historical development and themes from the post- World War II era to more recent legislative innovation, and second, introduce seven heterodox vignettes that challenge the hegemony of consumption in legislative policy. The paper concludes with some brief reflections upon potential opportunities and limitations of these heterodox traditions within future scholarship and policy addressing the interplay of law and consumption in global …

The Political Economy Of Special Economic Zones, Lotta Moberg

Lotta Moberg

Special economic zones (SEZs) are a wide-spread and increasingly popular tool for economic growth. Big or small, secluded or isolated, they are areas where a government allows for different rules to apply than the rest of the country. Most commonly, this means granting fiscal privileges to investors in the zones. Exemptions from taxes, tariffs, and sometimes regulations mean that SEZs form islands of economic liberalization in a country. A common attitude to zones is therefore that while broader liberalization is preferred, SEZs always benefit a country as long as they bring about this marginal improvement. The skeptical view of SEZs …

European Integration And The Evolution Of Economic State Capacities In The Southern And Eastern Peripheries Of Europe, Laszlo Bruszt, Visnja Vukov

laszlo bruszt

No abstract provided.

The (Small) Blessing Of Foreign Aid: Further Evidence On Aid's Impact On Democracy, John Thornton

John Thornton

In an empirical contribution to the literature of foreign aid, we estimate the impact of foreign aid on democracy in a panel of 93 developing economies during 1971–2010. We find that foreign aid promotes democracy, with the result robust to different estimation methodologies and control variables and to instrumenting for foreign aid.

Khodorkovsky & La Génesis De Los Mercados En Rusia, Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

No abstract provided.

Comisionados & Órganos Reguladores, Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

No abstract provided.

Hungry Capital: The Financialization Of Food, Luigi Russi

Luigi Russi

Over the past thirty years, the ability of global finance to affect aspects of everyday life has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. The world of food bears vivid testimony to this tendency, through the scars opened by the 2008 world food price crisis, the iron fist of retailing giants that occupy the supply chain and the unsustainable ecological footprint left behind by global production networks. Hungry Capital offers a rigorous analysis of the influence that financial imperatives exert on the food economy at different levels: from the direct use of edible commodities as an object of speculation to the …

Federal Competition And Economic Growth, Katrina Kosec, John William Hatfield

Katrina Kosec

A Second Look At The 2007-08 Food Price Crisis: Considering The Impact Of Endogenous Dynamics On Food Prices, Luigi Russi

Luigi Russi

This paper offers an alternative to the conventional explanation of the 2007-08 food price crisis in terms of escalating demand or dwindling supply. Instead, its focus is on the legal institutional structure of commodity futures markets, which has witnessed a drastic alteration in the role of speculators. These have transformed from “market makers” (that keep commodity futures markets liquid by arbitraging on price fluctuations) to “market breakers”. Index speculation, in particular, has had the effect of muddling information about market “fundamentals” because of the need – brought about by commodity index swaps – for swap dealers to hedge the fluctuations …

Malnutrition, Child Health, And Water Quality: Is There A Role For Private Sector Participation In South Asia?, Katrina Kosec

Katrina Kosec

Bicameral Bargaining And Federation Formation, Ross D. Hickey

Ross D Hickey

This paper takes a political economy approach to fiscal centralization, through federation formation. We analyze a simple two region model of federalism with inter-regional policy spillovers. Departing from a state of independence with de-centralized provision of public policy we analyze the proposed formation of a federation to internalize the spillovers. A federation forms when the centralized outcomes satisfy participation constraints. With this restriction to rational federalism we then consider equilibrium allocations under alternative institutional environments involving; simple majority voting, restriction of uniform taxation, and regional bargaining through a bicameral legislature. The analysis illustrates the importance of these institutions on the …

The Political Economy Of Telecoms And Electricity Internationalization In The Single Market, Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes, Revuelta Julio

Judith Clifton

As a consequence of liberalization policies in the European Union (EU), a number of formerly inward-looking incumbents in telecommunications and electricity transformed themselves into some of the world’s leading Multinationals. The relationship between liberalization and incumbent internationalization, however, is contested. Three political economy arguments on this relationship are tested. The first claims that incumbents most exposed to domestic liberalization would internationalise most. The second asserts that incumbents operating where liberalization was restricted could exploit monopolistic rents to finance internationalisation. The third argument claims that a diversity of paths will be adopted by countries and incumbents vis-à-vis liberalization and internationalization. Using …

An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians' tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government …

Financial Crisis In Turkey, Political Economy Papers: 53, Madrid, Gary S. Sander

Gary S Sander

In the last decade the Turkish economy was hit by two crises. This paper we will discus answers these questions. What are the causes of the 1994 and 2001 crisis? Could the financial crisis have been avoided? What are the lessons that can be drawn from these crises?

Computing The Extent Of Circumvention Of Proposition 13: A Response, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles

Robert L Sexton

ABSTRACT. Galles and Sexton (1998) showed that California state and local revenues exceeded their previous real per capita levels as did the sum of property taxes plus charges and miscellaneous revenues within a decade after Proposition 13 passed, and concluded that Proposition 13 was only temporarily successful at shrinking California state and local governments. Khoury and Pal (2000) challenge this conclusion. However, their conclusion that Proposition 13’s circumvention “has been only marginal” results from using per $1000 of income comparisons rather than real per capita comparisons and from using growth rate changes, which fail to adjust for U.S. fiscal trends, …

An Alternative Tale Of Two Tax Jurisdictions: A Reply, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles

Robert L Sexton

ABSTRACT. Cebula (1999) suggests that the success of California's Proposition 13 and Massachusetts' Proposition 2-1/2 is better judged by their effects on the growth rates of real per capita revenues and expenditures rather than on the te^ek of those variables, which Galles and Sexton (1998) used to evaluate those measures. However, the data shows that virtually all of their effects, relative to the United States as a whole, arose during their implementation periods, and that there is no clear evidence of the "longer term success in terms of reducing the growth rate of real per capita revenues and expenditures" that …

Diseconomies Of School District Size, Robert Sexton

Robert L Sexton

No abstract provided.

Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

After an extensive discussion of the nature of the interactions among unions, corporations, and government, we find that government in granting privileges to workers organized into unions implicitly taxes capital formation. The result has been to lessen the attention business decisions pay to the future, to substitute excessive wages for appropriate capital investment, and to reduce the competitive vitality of major U.S. industries.

Restrictiong Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles

Robert L Sexton

No abstract provided.

Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves

Robert L Sexton

After an extensive discussion of the nature of the interactions among unions, corporations, and government, we find that government in granting privileges to workers organized into unions implicitly taxes capital formation. The result has been to lessen the attention business decisions pay to the future, to substitute excessive wages for appropriate capital investment, and to reduce the competitive vitality of major U.S. industries.

Restricting Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles, James E. Long

Robert L Sexton

Abstract: This paper examines trends in California taxes and expenditures at the state and local level. In particular, it considers whether Proposition 13, which has been blamed by politicians and the press for virtually every ensuing fiscal problem facing state and local governments in California, deserves such criticism, or whether the roots of those problems lie elsewhere.

Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves

Robert L Sexton

After an extensive discussion of the nature of the interactions among unions, corporations, and government, we find that government in granting privileges to workers organized into unions implicitly taxes capital formation. The result has been to lessen the attention business decisions pay to the future, to substitute excessive wages for appropriate capital investment, and to reduce the competitive vitality of major U.S. industries.

Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

PHILIP E GRAVES

A model of the optimal speed limit is developed which explicitly recognizes the roles of average speed, speed variance, and the level of enforcement. An unusual result emerges, namely that a higher speed limit may be optimal when reducing the variance in highway speeds reduces accident externalities.

Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

A model of the optimal speed limit is developed which explicitly recognizes the roles of average speed, speed variance, and the level of enforcement. An unusual result emerges, namely that a higher speed limit may be optimal when reducing the variance in highway speeds reduces accident externalities.

A Note On Drinking, Driving, And Enforcement Costs, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

PHILIP E GRAVES

There was no abstract for this brief note.

Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton

PHILIP E GRAVES

There was no abstract for this paper.

Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There was no abstract for this paper.

Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There was no abstract for this paper.