The employment effects of UK manufacturing trade expansion with the EEC and the newly industrialising countries

This paper uses an input-output framework to consider the employment effects in the U.K. of a balanced trade expansion with the Newly Industrialising Countries and the EEC. Both the overall net effects and the results by industry are presented. They are subdivided into the direct effects on an industry due to the trade change in that industry and the indirect effects arising from that part of the industry's production which is sold as an intermediate input to other industries. The exercise, carried out for 1979, finds small negative net overall employment effects in each case examined, but important differences in the inter-industry pattern of employment changes are reported.     

The political economy of contributive pensions in developing countries

This paper sheds light on the role of public institutions as a way to reduce tax evasion through a close link between payroll taxation and pension benefits. We use a political economy model in which agents have the possibility to hide part of their earnings in order to avoid taxation and, where the public system is more efficient in providing annuitized pension benefits than the private sector. We show that in the absence of evasion costs, agents are indifferent to the tax rate level as they can always perfectly adapt compliance so as to face their preferred effective tax rate. There is unanimity in favour of the maximum tax rate and, the public pension system is found to be partially contributive in order to increase tax compliance and thus the resources collected. This, in turn, enables higher redistribution toward the worst-off agents. When evasion costs are introduced, perfect substitutability between compliance and taxation breaks down. At the majority-voting equilibrium, individuals at the bottom of the income distribution who are in favour of more redistribution, and those at the top who want to transfer more resources to the old age, form a coalition against middle-income agents, in favour of high tax rates. In addition to the previous tax base argument, the optimal level of the Bismarkian pillar is now chosen so as to account for political support.     

The political economy of wage-earner funds: policy debate and Swedish experience

Various European proposals for wage-earner funds are briefly surveyed. The central issues of the policy debate surrounding these funds are then discussed. It is argued that the outcome of this debate was not determined solely by a rational appraisal of the economic costs and benefits of the various policy options. Wage-earner funds raise questions concerning the ownership and control of capital and have therefore been the focus of political conflict between powerful interest groups. The paper then analyses the experience of wage-earner funds in Sweden, dealing with their objectives, behaviour and economic performance.     

Education policy and inequality: A political economy approach

Regression results show that more unequal societies tend to spend comparatively more on higher levels of education. In a two-period model with heterogeneous agents, this paper investigates the political determinants of this bias. In the first period, public education is financed by the incumbent government by issuing bonds. Investments in basic and higher education have conflicting effects on future labour income distribution and net returns to these investments depend on the tax and transfers system being selected in the following period through the democratic process. Our idea is that public investment in basic education, by decreasing future labour income inequality, may induce future policy-makers to redistribute resources through financial rents taxation, thus making unfeasible the issuing of debt to finance basic education. This will be the more probable the greater wealth inequality is.     

Federal homelessness policy: A robust political economy approach

In the wake of the financial crisis, the United States government introduced a new large-scale initiative to address homelessness. The policy mandate is marked by both an unprecedented increase in federal funding and a dramatic reallocation of resources toward Housing First, a service model emphasizing immediate housing subsidization. Although this service paradigm has received support from a sizeable literature, our knowledge of its success to date has been limited. This paper sheds light on the unobservable or unmeasured costs of this new centralized approach to ending homelessness. I argue that federal homelessness policy under the Housing First approach 1) generates resource misallocation, 2) exacerbates the Samaritan’s dilemma, and 3) invites rent seeking.     

On the political economy of skill in the advanced industrial nations

The importance of education and training policy is being enhanced by its increasingly high profile as a competitive strategy in the age of global capitalism. This article argues that human–capital theory, because it objectifies skill and fails to uncover its social context, offers an inadequate framework for understanding the relationship between the economy and skill systems. An adequate economic framework for understanding changes in education and training systems must be linked to a theory of institutional change in the economy. The article used one such theory, in building on the contributions of the regulation school but concludes that, contra the ideology of post–Fordism and of liberal political economists, a high–wage/high–skills strategy is only one route for capital accumulation in the 1990s, and that this route will only be achieved through conflict. The article concludes that, this used alongside other policies, a progressive education strategy which could be linked with the usage of high skills in industry would have some chance of success in the current era.     

The political economy of exchange rate regimes in developed and developing countries

This paper examines the influence of government ideology, political institutions and globalization on the choice of exchange rate regime via panel multinomial logit approach using annual data over the period of 1974-2004 in a panel of 180 countries: 26 developed and 154 developing.We provide evidence that government ideology, political institutions and globalization are important determinants of the choice of exchange rate regime. In particular, we find that left-wing governments, democratic institutions, central bank independence and financial development increase the likelihood of choosing a flexible regime, whereas more globalized countries have a higher probability of implementing a fixed regime. More importantly, we find that political economy factors have different effects on the choice of exchange rate regime in developed and developing countries. All our results are robust to panel ordered probit model.     

Dynamic environmental policy in developing countries with a dual economy

We analyze a dynamic model of environmental policy in a stylized developing country (DC) with a dual economy. This DC's economy is distorted in part because the government subsidizes the exports of the nonpolluting sector of the economy. We analyze the employment and output effects of three different pollution taxes. These taxes incorporate alternate assumptions about the DC government's ability to commit to its announced course of action. We describe the taxes, we examine the dependence of these taxes on the extant distortion, and we stipulate the conditions which call for an activist policy, irrespective of the length of time to which the government can commit to its announced policy. Inter alia, our analysis shows why some DC governments may not be serious about environmental protection.     

The political economy of high-tech industries in developing countries: aerospace in Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa

This paper explores the dynamics of high-tech industrialisationin three emerging countries with sub-regional power ambitionsin the peculiar case of aerospace. The focus of the analysisis on the interaction between economic and political factors,at both the domestic and the international levels. The three(initially) state-owned firms show diverging fortunes that reflectdifferences in the ability to align the ownership structureto the financial requirements of technological upgrading, toadopt modern management practices, to participate actively inthe internationalisation of global supply chains, and to garnerthe support of domestic interest groups.     

Fiscal policy and private consumption in industrial and developing countries

This paper empirically studies the effects of fiscal policy shocks on private consumption. Further, it investigates if the initial financing needs of the government or previous fiscal deficits affect that relationship. We use yearly data between 1970 and 2000 for 40 countries, of which 19 are industrialized and 21 are developing countries. In general, the estimation results seem to indicate that government consumption shocks have Keynesian effects for both industrial and developing countries. In the case of tax shocks, the evidence is mixed. Furthermore, there is no evidence that favors the hypothesis of expansionary fiscal consolidations.     

The political economy of Brexit: explaining the vote

The UK’s closely contested Brexit vote to leave the EU is expected to have a significant impact on the UK and EU. While calculating the impact of Brexit is difficult since the UK is still formally a member of the EU, understanding the vote is possible. Leading up to the referendum, public opinion was divided along demographic and economic lines. This article uses referendum results at the local government level to test whether national, racial, religious and economic factors actually influenced the vote. Results indicate that demographic variables played a role while economic variables did not.     

The political economy of regionalism

We examine the incentives of regions to unite and separate. Separation allows for greater influence over the nature of political decision making while unification allows regions to exploit economies of scale in the provision of government. Our paper explores the influence of size, location and the diversity within regions in shaping this trade-off. We then examine the way in which alternative political institutions aggregate regional preferences and thereby define the number of countries.     

The political economy of seigniorage

While most economists agree that seigniorage is one way governments finance deficits, there is less agreement about the political, institutional and economic reasons for relying on it. This paper investigates the main political and institutional determinants of seigniorage using panel data on about 100 countries, for the period 1960–1999. Estimates show that greater political instability leads to higher seigniorage, especially in developing, less democratic and socially-polarized countries, with high inflation, low access to domestic and external debt financing and with higher turnover of central bank presidents. One important policy implication of this study is the need to develop institutions conducive to greater political stability as a means to reduce the reliance on seigniorage financing of public deficits.     

The political economy of industrialisation

This paper analyses how incentives under different sets of political institutions map into policies that promote industrialisation. I set out an endogenous growth model with non-overlapping generations, where agents are heterogeneous with respect to wealth, skills and political power. The skills of the political elite play a crucial role for industrialisation to occur. It is shown that a flat wealth distribution and a skilled political elite enhance development the most in elitist regimes, while democracies perform as well as elitist regimes in terms of industrialisation. The theoretical results regarding elitist regimes are in line with evidence on the Industrial Revolution.     

Harnessing the political economy of environmental policy: David Pearce’s contribution to OECD

During 34 years, David Pearce made major contribution to OECD work on environmental economic issues, with a particular focus on cost–benefit analysis, economic instruments, biodiversity and distributive issues. This article provides a brief review of David Pearce’s contributions. This work was particularly useful in enhancing the political economy of environmental policy which is at the core of OECD work. The opinions expressed in this paper reflect the author’s perception of this long history of the development of environmental economics at OECD; it does not necessarily reflect the views of the OECD and its member countries. Many thanks to Jonathan Fisher, Nick Johnstone and Michel Potier for their comments on an earlier draft.     

The political economy of naturalization

This paper presents a political economy model in which self‐interested natives decide when citizenship and/or voting rights should be granted to foreign‐born workers. Native voters know that immigrants hold different ‘political’ preferences and would thus tend to postpone their enfranchisement as much as possible. They also consider, however, that a more restrictive naturalization policy may reduce the gains from immigration. We find that the optimal timing of naturalization depends on the quantity, quality (productivity), and preferences of potential immigrants, the political composition and the age structure of the native population, as well as the sensitivity of migration choices to the citizenship issue.