Now or later? The political economy of public investment in democracies

This paper explores the impact of elections on public investment. Working with a sample of 67 presidential and parliamentary democracies between 1975 and 2012, we find that the growth rate of nominal public investment is higher at the beginning of electoral cycles and decelerates thereafter. The peak in public investment growth occurs 28 months before elections, and each month closer to the next election the growth rate of public investment declines by 0.7 percentage points. Other political variables, such as cabinet ideology and government fragmentation have less influence on short-term public investment dynamics. Fiscal rules and stronger institutions seem to attenuate the impact of elections on investment, but available information is insufficient to draw definitive conclusions. These results are robust to a number of controls, including for fixed elections.     

Decentralization and electoral accountability: Incentives, separation and voter welfare

This paper provides a systematic analysis of fiscal decentralization on the quality of government by studying jointly its effects on electoral discipline and selection, in a setting where, realistically, voters only have limited information about fiscal policy in other jurisdictions, ruling out yardstick competition. Fiscal centralization reduces the extent of electoral discipline, as a corrupt (rent-seeking) incumbent can target good behavior only at a “minimum winning coalition” of regions (selective rent-diversion) in order to retain office, but thus makes it more profitable for bad incumbents to pool with good ones, thus increasing the probability of electoral discipline occurring at all. Voters tend to prefer centralization when politicians are low quality i.e. more likely to be corruptible. Centralization with uniform taxes can dominate both unconstrained centralization and decentralization, explaining why uniform taxes are so widely observed.     

Comparative politics and quasi-rational markets

This article synthesises psychology, economics and political science theories that can explain market reaction to elections. In order to test the theories, we conduct event studies of the impact of elections on the interest rates on government bonds for 122 elections in 19 countries. The efficient market hypothesis states that rational markets immediately incorporate all information relevant to asset prices. According to psychology, human decision-making is quasi-rational. Market actors should be slow to accept evidence that conflicts with previously held opinions, leading them to under-react to new information. We show that markets under-react to elections and that under-reaction is greater in majoritarian countries because they provide more information to the market. Assuming fully rational markets underestimates the impact of elections and variations in impact across political systems. Most of the literature on market constraint assumes rational markets and may thus be underestimating the extent of market pressure in the aftermath of elections and its distribution across different types of electoral systems. Our results suggest that markets can calculate risk around elections, but are slow to do so, thereby suggesting that the role of uncertainty and the resort to heuristics is relatively minor.     

The Fiscal Impact of Immigrants in Austria – A Generational Accounting Analysis

In this paper, we employ generational accounting to analyse the inter-temporal stance of Austrian public finance in 1998 as well as the inter-temporal fiscal impact of immigration to Austria. Immigrants affect inter-temporal fiscal balance in essentially two ways. Firstly, they have a demographic effect in enlarging the population (and thus the tax base) and in altering its age- (and gender-) composition. Secondly, they change the fiscal characteristics of age cohorts due to a representative immigrant exhibiting higher or lower tax and transfer payments than a representative native of the same age and gender. The overall fiscal effect of immigration is found positive, under the assumption that the age and fiscal characteristics of future immigrants resemble those of the current immigrant population in Austria. This is due to a favourable age composition and lower per capita net transfer receipts during retirement age, which compensate for lower per capita net tax payments during working age. However, immigration is not likely to achieve inter-temporal fiscal balance, even if immigration increases or migrants are screened by skill or age.     

How elections affect fiscal policy and growth: revisiting the mechanism

This paper reconsiders the popular result that the lower is the probability of reelection, the greater is the incentive of incumbent politicians to choose short-sighted, inefficient policies. The set-up is a general equilibrium model of economic growth, in which fiscal policy is endogenously chosen under electoral uncertainty. Political parties can value possible economic benefits differently depending on whether they are in or out of power, and—by contrast with the literature—the relevant preference coefficient is a choice variable rather than an exogenous taste parameter. The main result is that, when political parties choose both economic policy instruments and preference coefficients, the fundamental reason for short-sighted policy is the extra rents from being in power per se.     

The twilight of the setter? Public school budgets in a time of institutional change

We use a policy change that occurred in Oregon in the late 1980s to re‐visit the budget‐maximizing agenda setter theory of local public expenditure. Prior to 1987, Oregon school districts held operating levy elections with an exogenous, often zero or very low, spending reversion. From 1987 through 1990, districts experienced a “safety net” regime where the reversion was at least the previous year's nominal spending. We find that the “safety net” sharply limited the agenda setter's ability to use the reversion as a threat to obtain voter approval of relatively large expenditures.     

The determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration

The paper formulates hypotheses and reports on individual attitudes towards immigration based on data for 24 countries on socioeconomic position, sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes. The results are consistent with the predictions of factor proportions trade theory, but also suggest that a range of other economic and cultural factors influence attitudes towards immigration.     

The fiscal sociology of Gino Borgatta: Pareto, extra-economic redistribution and economic growth

The purpose of this study is to establish the extent to whichBorgatta's early fiscal sociology is consistent with, and differentfrom, Vilfredo Pareto's critical views on fiscal theory. Particularemphasis is given to the treatment of the relationship between‘extra-economic’ redistribution, achieved throughfiscal measures, and economic growth. Since evidence of Pareto'sinfluence is much weaker in Borgatta's more mature studies,the ‘definitive’ Paretian fiscal sociology thatemerged in his early ‘Lo Studio Scientifico dei FenomeniFinanziari’ is investigated for possible indications ofwhy Borgatta did not subsequently develop fiscal studies furtheralong Paretian lines.     

中国的“三元悖论”政策目标组合选择及其影响

本文构建了"三元悖论"政策目标指数,并探讨了中国的宏观经济管理策略对经济稳定性的影响。研究发现,中国以汇率高度稳定作为首要目标,并追求适度的货币政策独立性,而谨慎追求金融开放,并积累了巨额外汇储备。这种策略的影响包括:(1)较高的货币政策独立性对降低产出波动率有积极作用,因持有外汇储备的间接影响使得汇率高度稳定政策也显著降低了产出波动率,金融开放同样也起到了降低产出波动率的作用;(2)积累巨额外汇储备与追求汇率高度稳定政策间的交互影响使得汇率稳定成为维持物价稳定的消极因素,货币政策独立性将降低国内通货膨胀波动率而积累过多的外汇储备却恶化这种影响,金融开放将增加物价波动性。文章凸显出过度追求人民币名义汇率稳定的弊端。     

Immigration, fertility, and human capital: A model of economic decline of the West

I show how the influences of unskilled immigration, differential fertility between immigrants and the local indigenous population, and incentives for investment in human capital combine to predict the decline of the West. In particular, indigenous low-skilled workers lose from unskilled immigration even if the indigenous low-skilled workers do not finance redistribution, do not compete with immigrants in the labor market, and do not compete with immigrants for publicly financed income transfers. For the economy at large, high-fertility unskilled immigrants and a low-fertility indigenous population result in economic decline through reduced human capital accumulation and reduced growth of per-capita output.     

国际资本流动、经济扭曲与宏观稳定--当前经济增长态势分析

本文针对当前中国所面临的资本流动新格局(即大量非FDI流入) ,分析了国际资本流动引起宏观不稳定的机制,以及通过对冲与资本管制方式应对资本流动冲击的局限。论文的核心是引入经济扭曲概念,建立了带扭曲因素的资本流动与宏观稳定模型,强调扭曲的存在会使波动加剧。因此,为应对资本流动新格局,政策当局需要尽快完善非FDI监控体系、矫正各种经济扭曲,并促使宏观调控模式由数量型向价格型转变     

Repositioning the Chinese economy on the global economic stage

A tectonic shift in the global economic prowess became obvious around the turn of the last century. Three decades of macroeconomic reforms, sustained growth and global integration have turned China into a future economic power of global magnitude, with unmatched breadth of resources and a robust manufacturing sector. Significance of the Chinese economy has radically increased and it has traversed from the periphery of the global economy to the core. For all appearances, this progress is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. China has grown to be the fourth largest economy in the world in a short time span and the third largest trader. Events like dawning of an economic superpower occur once in several generations. China is endeavoring to make a new niche for itself in the global economy as well as formulate a new role.