Distributive politics of public goods networks through multistage voting

Public goods networks create conflict between districts needing the network and districts that pay the costs. Thus, it is difficult for pork barrel politicians to achieve logrolling with other districts. I show that logrolling is possible for such politicians if they set their agenda properly. To show this, I model the centralized decision‐making process as a multistage vote among representatives from different districts. I assume the districts are better off if and only if the public good “connects” them to the network. Public goods can be provided universally by setting the agenda properly, even when costs exceed the benefits.     

AFTA and the Asian Crisis: Help or Hindrance to ASEAN Intra‐Regional Trade?

Using a modified gravity equation, this paper examines ASEAN intra- and extra-regional bias in bilateral trade flows and how these relationships have altered over time. We pay particular attention to the periods before and after the signing of AFTA as well as the crucial years prior to and following the Asian crisis. Given the 'openness' of ASEAN countries we consider not only intra-ASEAN trade but also the effect of AFTA on non-members. We find that trade flows were not significantly affected in the years immediately following the signing of the AFTA agreement and also that the traditional stance of ASEAN countries to outward-oriented economic activity has not been significantly damaged but rather stimulated by the AFTA process and/or the Asian economic crisis. We do find, however, that that one effect of the Asian economic crisis was to generate a stronger desire to source imports from within the region.     

Asymptotics for panel quantile regression models with individual effects

This paper studies panel quantile regression models with individual fixed effects. We formally establish sufficient conditions for consistency and asymptotic normality of the quantile regression estimator when the number of individuals, n$n$, and the number of time periods, T$T$, jointly go to infinity. The estimator is shown to be consistent under similar conditions to those found in the nonlinear panel data literature. Nevertheless, due to the non-smoothness of the objective function, we had to impose a more restrictive condition on T$T$ to prove asymptotic normality than that usually found in the literature. The finite sample performance of the estimator is evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations.     

Endogenous timing and income inequality in the voluntary provision of public goods: Theory and experiment

This study theoretically and experimentally investigates the effects of income inequality on donors' decisions regarding timing choices and contributions to public goods when contribution timing is endogenously chosen by contributors. To this end, we use the conventional voluntary provision models of Warr (1983) and Bergstrom, Blume and Varian (1986), with Cobb–Douglas preferences augmented with a two-stage game of Hamilton and Slutsky (1990). The following results were obtained and experimentally confirmed. First, when the distribution of income is extremely unequal, donors are indifferent between the simultaneous and sequential moves in the contribution game. Second, as income inequality is decreased, the simultaneous-move contribution game is likely to emerge because every donor prefers to act as a leader. Nevertheless, a higher-income donor may also prefer to act as a follower without specific social preferences and uncertainty regarding the quality of public goods. Third, most theoretical predictions regarding timing decisions are supported in our laboratory experiment, provided that the participants had enough time to learn the consequences of their timing choices.