Political Economy Commons^™

Why Did Universities Precede Primary Schools? A Political Economy Model Of Educational Change, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Universities were first established in Europe around the twelfth century, although primary schools did not appear until the nineteenth. This paper accounts for this phenomenon using a political economy model of educational change on who are educated (the elite or the masses) and what is taught (general or specific/vocational education). A key assumption is that general education is more effective than specific education in enhancing one's skills in a broad range of tasks, including political rent-seeking. Its findings suggest that specific education for the masses is compatible with the elite rule, whereas mass general education is not, which refines the …

A Tilt In Favour Of The Older Generation, Less Fortunate, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Assistant Professor of Law Eugene Tan writes that although there are generally no significant handouts, offsets or goodies, Budget 2012 addresses some of the key genuine concerns of Singaporeans during the May 2011 General Election. It is also expected to generate a surplus of S$1.3 billion at a time when many advanced economies are in recession and with significant deficits.

A Spatial Analysis Of The Italian Second Republic, Second Version, Massimiliano Landi, Ricardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School Of Economics

We apply the Optimal Classification method to a newly created dataset to provide a spatial map of the Italian Second Republic (1996-2008). We find a bi-dimensional political space in the XIII Legislature and virtually a one dimensional political space in the XIV and XV Legislatures. In addition, the main dimension is explained along the dimension government opposition rather than on the traditional left and right dimension. During the Second Republic, Italy experienced changes in electoral system and in the format of the parties. We use our data to discuss the implications of either change on the dimensionality space. We find …

One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown’s propensity to benefit from the State’s “poor commune support program”. Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson’s and promoted official’s ages …

One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown’s propensity to benefit from the State’s “poor commune support program”. Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson’s and promoted official’s ages …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: The Value Of Political Connections In Social Networks, Quoc-Anh Do, Bang Dang Nguyen, Yen Teik Lee, Kieu-Trang Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the impact of social-network connections to politicians on firm value. We focus on the networks of university classmates and alumni among directors of U.S. public firms and congressmen. Using the Regression Discontinuity Design based on close elections from 2000 to 2008, we identify that a director’s connection to an elected congressman causes a Weighted Average Treatment Effect on Cumulative Abnormal Returns of -2.65% surrounding the election date. The effect is robust and consistent through various specifications, parametric and nonparametric, with different outcome measures and social network definitions, and across many subsamples. We find evidence to support the …

Globalization And Commitment In Corporate Social Responsibility: Cross-National Analyses Of Institutional And Political-Economy Effect, Alwyn Lim, Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines why global corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks havegained popularity in the past decade, despite their uncertain costs and benefits, and how theyaffect adherents’ behavior. We focus on the two largest global frameworks—the United NationsGlobal Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative—to examine patterns of CSR adoption bygovernments and corporations. Drawing on institutional and political-economy theories, wedevelop a new analytic framework that focuses on four key environmental factors—globalinstitutional pressure, local receptivity, foreign economic penetration, and national economicsystem. We propose two arguments about the relationship between stated commitment andsubsequent action: decoupling due to lack of capacity and organized hypocrisy due …

The Singapore Town-Hall Meeting, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Professor Eugene Tan forecasts what the Prime Minister might say in his National Day Rally speech. He predicts it will touch on the ecomomy, Presidential election and social cohesion, among other issues.

The People Want The Fall Of The Regime: Schooling, Political Protest, And The Economy, Filipe R. Campante, Davin Chor

Research Collection School Of Economics

We provide evidence that economic circumstances are a key intermediating variable for understanding the relationship between schooling and political protest. Using the World Values Survey, we find that individuals with higher levels of schooling, but whose income outcomes fall short of that predicted by their biographical characteristics, in turn display a greater propensity to engage in protest activities. We discuss a number of interpretations that are consistent with this finding, including the idea that economic conditions can affect how individuals trade off the use of their human capital between production and political activities. Our results could also reflect a link …

Conformism And Turnout, Massimiliano Landi, Mauro Sodini

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a model of turnout in which citizens have a preference for conformism, which adds to the instrumental preference for the electoral outcome. Under this environment multiple equilibria arise, some that generate a (more realistic) high level of turnout, for a wide rage of parameter values. It is also shown that high levels of turnout are robust to the introduction of asymmetry and heterogeneity in the parameter governing the preference for conformism and with respect to the reference group for conformism.

This model suggests that high turnout can only be achieved as the outcome of a particular coordination …

Introduction: Culture, Economy, Policy: Trends And Developments, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The important nexus between culture and economy is by no means a recent development nor a novel inclusion on the social science agenda. As Harvey pointed out in his foreword to Zukin's (1988)Loft Living, the artist, as one `representative' of the cultural class, has always shared a position in the market system, whether as artisans or as “cultural producers working to the command of hegemonic class interest”. In the last two to three decades, in the US and more lately, in western Europe, cultural activities have become increasingly significant in the economic regeneration strategies in many cities. Geographers, however, have …

To Build A Nation From The Bottom Up, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

After 45 years of economic achievement, genuine political participation has to be the next stage

Can Market Failure Cause Political Failure, Madhav S. Aney, Maitreesh Ghatak, Massimo Morelli

Research Collection School Of Economics

How can market failure interact with choice of institutional reform made by an electorate? We study this question in the framework of occupational choice where agents are endowed heterogeneously with wealth and talent. In our model, market failure due to unobservability of talent endogenously creates a class structure that affects vote on institutional reform. We find that the preferences of these classes may be highly nonmonotonic in wealth and are often aligned in ways that creates a tension between institutional reforms that are growth maximising and those that are politically feasible. This is in contrast to the world without market …

The Beginning Of The End? Agricultural Modernization And Dissolution Of The Peasantry In Contemporary China, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Extreme Neo-Liberalism: An Introduction, Stefano Harney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

During the Historical Materialism Conference (2009), Stefano Harney gave a talk within an ephemerasession on ‘Politics in the Business School’ which we organised in preparation for this special issue. Thispiece offers a full transcription of that talk and is prefaced here by some introductory remarks fromStefano. The question and answer session which followed the talk has also been made available online asan audio file. Special thanks are due to Demet Dimler for inviting ephemera to organise a session atHistorical Materialism, to Matteo Mandarini for chairing the session, to Tim Edkins for recording thesession and to Alison Shalaby for transcribing the …

Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role Of Population, Quoc-Anh Do, Filipe R. Campante

Research Collection School Of Economics

In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in guaranteeing the quality of governance and redistribution. We argue and demonstrate with historical evidence that the concentration of population around the policy making center serves as an insurgency threat to a dictatorship, inducing it to yield to more redistribution and better governance. We bring this centered concept of population concentration to the data through the Centered Index …

Instability And The Incentives For Corruption, Filipe R. Campante, Davin Chor, Quoc-Anh Do

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the relationship between corruption and political stability, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. We propose a model of incumbent behavior that features the interplay of two effects: a horizon effect, whereby greater instability leads the incumbent to embezzle more during his short window of opportunity, and a demand effect, by which the private sector is more willing to bribe stable incumbents. The horizon effect dominates at low levels of stability, because firms are unwilling to pay high bribes and unstable incumbents have strong incentives to embezzle, whereas the demand effect gains salience in more stable regimes. Together, these …

The Labor Market Of Italian Politicians, Antonio Merlo, Vincenzo Galasso, Massimiliano Landi, Andrea Mattozzi

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyze the career profiles of Italian legislators in the post-war period. Using a unique, newly collected dataset that contains detailed information on all the politicians who have been elected to the Italian Parliament between 1948 and 2008, we address a number of important issues that pertain to their career paths prior to election to Parliament, their parliamentary careers, and their post-Parliament employment. Our data span two institutional regimes: Italy's First Republic (1948-1994) and the Second Republic (1994-present), characterized by different electoral rules and party structures. We first present a brief overview of the Italian political system. We then provide …

The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.

Grasping The Small: The Political Economy Of Growth, Poverty And The Role Of The State In Two Chinese Provinces, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Connected Lives And Embeddedness: Reading Zelizer With Granovetter – A Review And Critique, Deirdre Caputo-Levine, Alwyn Lim, Celine. Wills

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Our concern is to read Viviana Zelizer’s Purchase of Intimacy inrelation to Mark Granovetter’s embeddedness framework. We compare Zelizer’s connected-lives approach to the embeddedness literature in orderto tease out the similarities, differences, and improvements in the wayseconomic sociologists examine the intertwining of economic and socialbehavior. We argue that although Zelizer and Granovetter both focus onthis intermeshing of socioeconomic action, their perspectives reflect theirdiffering starting points: economic transactions or intimate relationships.We believe Zelizer’s connected-lives approach gives fresh insight to thenew economic sociology but we have some reservations regarding hertreatment of reciprocity and power in intimate relationships.

The Coevolution Of Economic And Political Development, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of di¤erent production factors and the political con‡icts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main production factor in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables their respective owners (landlords, capitalists, and workers) to gain political power in the same sequence, shaping the political development path from monarchy to oligarchy and …nally to democracy with full su¤rage. When it is too costly for any group of factor owners to …

On The Segmentation Of Markets, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper endogenizes the market structure of an economy with heterogeneous agents who want to form bilateral matches in the presence of search frictions and when utility is nontransferable. There exist infinitely many marketplaces, and each agent chooses which marketplace to be in: agents get to choose not only whom to match with but also whom they meet with. Perfect segmentation is obtained in equilibrium, where agents match with the first person they meet. All equilibria have the same matching pattern. Although perfect assortative matching is not obtained in equilibrium, the degree of assortativeness is greater than in standard models.

The Coevolution Of Economic And Political Development, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of different production factors, and political conflicts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main capital form in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables their respective owners (landlords, capitalists, and workers) to gain political powers in the same sequence, shaping the political development path from monarchy to elite ruling and finally to full suffrage. When it is too costly for any group of factor owners to repress others, …

The Political Economy Of Poverty Reduction: A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Provinces, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Is growth good for the poor? In theory, yes. As one influential report on China’s “War on Poverty” suggested, ”Obviously robust economic growth helps reduce poverty, as long as the gains are reasonably distributed” (Rozelle et al. 2000). In practice as well, growth is often a crucial ingredient in the poverty reduction recipe. While this relationship is well founded, important exceptions present themselves – some areas grow, but poverty persists; the economies of other areas remain apparently stagnant, yet poverty diminishes. These exceptions, if studied, will not only illuminate further the causal relationship between these two concepts, but also provide …

A Spatial Analysis Of The Xiii Italian Legislature, Massimiliano Landi, Riccardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School Of Economics

We present a spatial map of the Italian House of Deputies during the XIII Legislature obtained by applying the Poole and Rosenthal methodology to roll call data. We estimate coordinates for almost all the 650 Deputies that were on the House’s floor at the time, and we aggregate them according to parties. We find that voting patters generate basically a two dimensional political space. The first dimension represents loyalty to either the ruling coalition or the opposing one. The second dimension is represented by the European Union. These findings are consistent with the exceptional case of the party Northern League, …

Hayek And Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

F. A. Hayek occupies a peculiar place in the history of twentiethcentury liberalism. His influence has, in many respects, been enormous. The Road to Serfdom, his first political work, not onlyattracted popular attention in the west but also circulated widely(in samizdat form) in the intellectual underground of Eastern Europeduring the years between the end of the war and the revolutions of1989. His critique of central planning has been thoroughly vindicated, if not by the demise of communist economic systems, thenat least by the recognition by socialists of many stripes of theimportance of market processes.1 Books and articles on his thoughtcontinue …

Westernization Of Business Organizations In Japan And China. Continuity And Change, Wai Keung Chung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Coalition Formation Theories Revisited: An Empirical Investigation Of Aumann's Hypothesis, Vincent Chua, Dan S. Felsenthal

Research Collection School Of Economics

In one of the earliest attempts to examine the effect of a priori voting power on actual political phenomena, Riker (1959) looked at changes in party affiliation in the French National Assembly in 1953–54, and used these data to test the hypothesis that deputies who switched parties were seeking thereby to increase their a priori voting power. His findings were negative, or at best inconclusive.

Growth Is Good For Whom, When, How?, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Economic growth often helps the poor, but what about the many cases when it does not? The consensus that economic growth reduces poverty, encapsulated by two World Bank economists in the above-quoted article entitled Growth is Good for the Poor, leaves many important questions unanswered. What help does the knowledge that economic growth can reduce poverty provide for economies with few realistic prospects for robust, sustained growth? What hope does the understanding that growth reduces poverty on average provide for poor families that are excluded from prosperity? How should we respond when economic growth undermines the market positions of the …