Do authoritarian regimes receive more Chinese development finance than democratic ones? Empirical evidence for Africa

This study is part of an emerging literature that aims to shed light on China's development finance activities in Africa using quantitative estimation techniques. This paper empirically investigates whether African authoritarian regimes receive more Chinese development finance than democratic ones. I use four different measures of democracy/autocracy which allows me to check whether my results depend on the specific indicator chosen. The OLS results suggest that Chinese development finance does not systematically flow to more authoritarian countries, controlling for strategic, economic, political, institutional and geographic confounding factors. The results are not driven by the specific democracy indicator used in the analysis. The findings remain virtually unchanged if I reduce the sample to Sub-Saharan Africa only. Furthermore, the results stand up to several robustness checks, including FE, RE and instrumental variable estimation.     

Is Democracy a Normal Good? Evidence from Democratic Movements

A frequent assertion of economists and political scientists is that democracy is a normal good, or that higher incomes lead citizens to “desire” more democracy. This assertion, however, has been difficult to test directly. I introduce a data set of democratic movements, and use it to address the relationship between income and the demand for democracy. Logit analysis of the estimated probability that a democratic movement occurs in an authoritarian country suggests that this probability is increasing in income per capita up to a level of approximately $5000. Unlike previous results, this does not suggest that all countries will become democratic once they pass some income threshold.     

Economic Institutions and the Durability of Democracy

Why do some democracies persist while others break down? Some studies have suggested that economic development decreases the likelihood of authoritarian reversal, which is consistent with Milton Friedman’s argument that economic freedom is necessary for political freedom. An empirical investigation of countries that have transitioned to democratic governments since World War II shows that higher quality economic institutions increase the durability of those democratic governments. This supports Friedman’s observation about the relationship between economic and political institutions.     

人口质量、政治制度与奥运绩效——来自四届奥运会的证据

基于2000-2012年四届夏季奥运会共72个国家的面板数据,论文对奥运绩效的国别差异进行了实证分析。我们发现引入以健康指数为代表的人口质量和以分权指数为代表的政治制度,可以很好地解释人口基数和经济规模无法解释的奥运绩效国别差异。首先,政治制度对奥运奖牌数量的影响呈现U型,即分权国家和集权国家获得的奖牌数都比较多,而中间国家获得的奖牌数相对较少;其次,健康指数、人口基数、经济份额、宗教分化以及东道主效应对奖牌数量均具有显著的正向作用,而种族分化具有负面作用。上述发现对于我国实施科学的奥运战略具有重要的指导意义。     

CAPITAL MOBILITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A PANEL DATA APPROACH

In this paper we are primarily concerned with assessing the degree of capital mobility in sub‐Saharan Africa. Using the methodology as proposed by Feldstein and Horioka (1980)—later termed the “Feldstein‐Horioka puzzle”—we test the hypothesis of perfect capital mobility against the alternative of imperfect capital mobility. Following Vamvakidis and Wacziarg (1998) and Isaksson (2000), provision is made in our model to show the dependency of the lesserdeveloped countries on international finance and aid and how a more open economy contributes towards improving the level of capital movement in these countries. We also assess the change in the degree of capital mobility over the time period in an effort to see whether institutional and political changes have been successful. We show that, compared to the region, South Africa is, to a large extent, more developed and should therefore play a leading role in the “African Renaissance”. Stationary panel data estimation techniques are applied to a sample of 36 sub‐Saharan African countries over the time period 1980–2000. The benefits of using one‐way error component models are derived from simultaneously employing time and cross‐section dimensions of the data, resulting in a substantial increase in the degrees of freedom. The fixed and random effects models enable us to acknowledge country heterogeneity within the panel, making provision for differences across countries like capital control policies, financial and capital market structures and exchange rate regimes.     

Time-Consistent Polities and Growth in Developing Countries: An Empirical Analysis

This paper investigates whether stable political regimes develop stable systems of rules that are conducive to growth, similar to property rights. New measures of political stability indicate that stable political systems stimulate growth in developing autocratic countries. Contrarily, political instability significantly reduces growth in autocracies, as instability creates a time-consistency problem. In some specifications, an instability measure has significant negative growth effects in democracies, and may be an alternative to measures of property rights. Similarly, ethnic fractionalization reduces growth in autocracies, but not developing democracies. Tests indicate that these results are not sensitive to extreme values in the data. JEL no. O40, H11     

Electoral fraud, the rise of Peron and demise of checks and balances in Argentina

The future looked bright for Argentina in the early twentieth century. It had already achieved high levels of income per capita and was moving away from authoritarian government towards a more open democracy. Unfortunately, Argentina never finished the transition. The turning point occurred in the 1930s when to stay in power, the Conservatives in the Pampas resorted to electoral fraud, which neither the legislative, executive, or judicial branches checked. The decade of unchecked electoral fraud led to the support for Juan Peron and subsequently to political and economic instability.     

The Shocking Origins of Political Transitions: Evidence from Earthquakes

Do earthquakes trigger political transitions? Using a rich panel dataset of 160 countries observed over 1950–2007, we find that earthquake shocks, measured in terms of the effect of ground‐motion amplitude on death toll, have two contradicting effects on political change. On the one hand, earthquakes drive transitions into democracy due to an affective shock, which we interpret to be the reaction of citizens by which they hold the incumbent government responsible for earthquake damages. On the other hand, earthquakes indirectly hasten transitions into a less democratic regime because they increase the income level contemporaneously, possibly due to short‐term emergency response and recovery expenditures, and thus, raising the opportunity cost of contesting the incumbent government. Overall, we show that, while not leading to a full‐fledged regime transition, earthquake shocks open a new democratic window of opportunity, but this window is narrowed by improved economic conditions.     

Foreign Aid and Regime Change: A Role for Donor Intent

This paper uses data from the AidData project to analyze the association between foreign aid and the likelihood of democratization in aid recipients. Previous studies have argued that aid can entrench dictatorships, making a transition less likely. I find evidence that the relationship between aid and democratization depends on characteristics of the aid donor. During the period from 1992 to 2007, aid from democratic donors is often found to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of a democratic transition. This is consistent with a scenario in which aid promotes democratization and/or a situation in which democratic donors reward countries that take steps in a democratic direction. In either case, it suggests that democratic donors use scarce aid resources to encourage democracy. During the same period, aid from authoritarian donors exhibits a negative relationship with democratization. This suggests that the source of funding matters, with donor preferences regarding democracy helping to determine the link between aid and democratization.     

Democracy and growth: The Sub-Saharan African case, 1960–1992

This article conducts a cross-national analysis of forty sub-Saharan African countries during the years 1960–1992. It examines the longrun relationship between political democracy and economic growth, taking advantage of the availability of large economic and political data sets. The conclusion from this study is that the economy grows faster under a regime that enjoys a higher level of institutionalized democracy. It is also found that a positive feedback relationship exists between democracy and growth; while democracy promotes growth, growth leads to a higher level of democratization. In addition, it is found that the duration of authoritarian rule decreases economic growth, while growth shortens the tenure of an autocratic government. Other factors that account for growth in sub-Saharan African countries include the initial size of the economy, human capital stocks, domestic investment share, and international trade.     

The political economy of social democratic economic policies: the Pasok experiment in Greece

This article looks at the political economy of social democraticeconomic policies. It focuses on those policies that seek toextend democracy to the social and economic spheres and examineswhy such experiments have met with limited success in the past.It compares external constraints on the viability of such policies,such as the freedom of capital movements and globalization,with internal constraints. Since social democratic policiesrely on promoting coordination and cooperation between economicagents and groups, it is argued that an important, but oftenneglected, internal constraint is the extent to which socialdemocracy can draw upon, or, if they are lacking, foster thoseinstitutions within society which promote coordination and cooperation.The paper examines in detail the social democratic experienceof PASOK in Greece and draws some conclusions for the widerrelevance of the future viability of social democratic economicpolicies.     

Political instability, policy uncertainty, and economic growth: An empirical investigation

This paper elaborates upon the effect of political stability on economic growth using a novel approach. Unlike the literature on growth that emphasizes the turnover of decision makers, this paper focuses on the volatility of economic policies as the relevant indicator of stability. The literature on growth ignores the microeconomic instability associated with frequent changes of government policies. The empirical results of this paper indicate that the effect of political instability on economic growth is not conclusive. Most of the commonly used proxies for political instability have failed to explain growth differences across countries. The political instability indices have no significant effect on growth when a reasonable set of core variables is also included in the regression equation. The results also show that almost all of the policy uncertainty variables are significantly and negatively correlated with economic growth. However, the instability of economic policies has no significant impact on the accumulation of capital.     

网络舆论监督与中国公民社会关系的理性审视

网络舆论监督作为网民积极发表自己意见的方式,汇聚众多民意。在对公共问题的探讨中自然渗透着权利、自由、民主、平等等基本价值准则,表达社会公众共同的利益诉求,形成广泛的政治参与,对中国公民社会的发展产生重大影响。我国的公民社会,作为改革开放的副产品,对网络舆论监督未来的健康发展将起到重要作用。从公民社会的理论来考察网络舆论监督或是从网络舆论监督的角度考察公民社会,理性审视二者的相互关系,有利于促进我国社会结构的发展和成熟。     

A springboard into politics: Do Chinese entrepreneurs benefit from joining the government-controlled business associations?

Business associations in authoritarian regimes behave systematically different from their counterparts in democratic regimes. Using a unique dataset of Chinese private firms, this paper examines the impacts of joining the most prominent business association in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC) which was initiated and strongly controlled by the government. We find that ACFIC members have much higher chances to obtain formal political identities, that is, the deputy of People's Congress (PC) or the People's Political Consultative Conference (PPCC). However, ACFIC membership itself cannot help entrepreneurs acquire scarce resources that are controlled by the government. Rather, ACFIC members bear heavier tax burdens and make more informal payments to government officials. These findings suggest that the ACFIC act as a springboard into politics, rather than an effective collective action committee that can bring common benefits to its members or protect members from government predation.     

Classification of unemployment: Analytical and policy relevance

Summary The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the way unemployment can be decomposed in several components, and to discuss the analytical and political relevance of such a decomposition. The paper deals systematically with the classifications of unemployment that can be found in the current international literature and fits them into a coherent framework. Finally, the relevance for economic policy of decomposing unemployment into components is discussed.This paper is based on Muysken (1988), which was written with the help of a grant from the Organization of Strategic Labour Market Research (OSA). I would like to thank the Department of Economics of the University Catholique de Louvain for their hospitality during two visits, which enabled me to write this paper and the above-mentioned report. I would like to thank S.K. Kuipers for comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

公民社会视域下的人的现代化发展理路

公民社会包含多重涵义,它主要是一种社会形态,一种社会治理模式所蕴含的精神。社会现代化包括社会结构、政治、经济、文化、人的价值观念和行为方式的现代化等多个层面,而人的现代化是其最终归宿和目的,人的现代化包含价值和实践两个维度,公民社会本身的结构及其所蕴含的平等、民主、自由、仁爱、责任、宽容、竞争等精神与人的现代化理念相辅相成,公民社会的建构对于解决现代社会的人的异化,促成人的现代化发展具有十分重要的借鉴意义。     

适应社会主义发展需要,加快民主政治建设

人类的需要决定了人类文明的产生 ,物质、政治、精神三大需要产生了三大文明。而政治文明的标志就是民主政治 ,因此在物质、精神文明的基础上 ,决定了民主政治逐渐发展的必然性。“没有民主就没有社会主义” ,建设民主政治是社会主义发展的客观需要。要使我国的社会主义社会更     

Indonesian politics in 2012: coalitions,accountability and the future of democracy

Indonesia is a successful but flawed democracy: while the electoral process has worked well, the quality of democratic governance is less encouraging. Missing from the equation between elections and democracy is political accountability. Parties’ obsession with coalition building as a route to political power has made it difficult for voters to attribute success or failure to elected officials. Coalition government allows politicians to send contradictory messages, and in 2012 religious minorities – which are neither banned nor protected – have paid a heavy price for the lack of accountability and leadership. In Jakarta an outsider, Joko Widodo, won the gubernatorial election despite facing an incumbent backed by a broad coalition. His victory illustrates that coalition building does not guarantee success, and that the electorate is mature enough not to be swayed by appeals to religious and ethnic sentiment. This gives heart to those hoping to strengthen democracy and democratic values in Indonesia.     

Time consistency,asymmetric information and monetary policy design: An overview

Summary This paper surveys the literature on monetary policy in the context of asymmetric information game theory. It distinguishes between the earlier literature focusing on finding reputational equilibria, the literature analyzing the possibilities of using announcements to influence expectations, and the principal-agent approach to the institutional design of monetary policy. The focus is on the institutional implications of the various studies. The conclusion is that institutional reforms directed at independent central banks with a mandate for price stability are not in line with the recommendations from the theory.I would like to thank Willem Boeschoten and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Meat consumption and democratic governance: A cross-national analysis

Food is a basic human right and democratic regimes are associated with upholding human rights as well as ensuring food security. Given that meat consumption can be regarded as a proxy for dietary quality, this study sheds light on the link between meat consumption and democratic governance using a cross-national panel dataset for 125 countries covering the period from 1972 to 2013. Employing a two-stage demand system, we find that democracy is positively correlated with meat consumption (including bovine, poultry, pig, and mutton and goat meat). A one unit improvement in democracy score, as measured by Freedom House, increases per capita total meat consumption by 3.57%. Furthermore, our results show that the effect varies according to meat product. In particular, a one unit qualitative improvement in democracy score increases the consumption of bovine, pig, poultry, and mutton and goat meat by 2.9%, 2.5%, 3.8% and 3.2% respectively.