Term limit extension and electoral participation. Evidence from a diff-in-discontinuities design at the local level in Italy

We study the effect of term limits on voter turnout in Italian local elections. Since 2014 the Italian law allows mayors in municipalities with a population size lower than 3,000 inhabitants to re-run for a third term, whereas mayors in cities with a number of residents above the cut-off still face a two-term limit. The introduction of the reform permits us to implement a difference-in-discontinuities design exploiting the before/after with the discontinuous policy change. We find that voters negatively react to the introduction of the reform: electoral participation decreases by about 5 percentage points in municipalities eligible to the treatment compared to municipalities in the control group. This negative effect is essentially driven by a decrease in the political competition. We also find that relaxing term limits does not improve the quality of politicians running for election.     

我国区域科普非均衡发展的实证分析及与经济协调发展的对策

改革开放后,我国实行的是非均衡经济发展战略,从而导致东部科学技术普及与经济发展水平明显高于中西部地区。通过分析我国东、中、西部三大区域之间以及各省（区、市）之间科普的非均衡发展现状,指出区域科普发展水平与其经济发展水平之间存在正相关关系。同时,探讨了科学技术普及与经济发展的互动机制,最后提出了促进我国区域科学技术普及与经济协调发展的对策。     

外商直接投资的知识溢出与中国区域经济增长

本文构建了包括国内知识资本、外商在华直接投资的知识溢出和地区技术进步的分析框架,通过中国29个省(直辖市、自治区)1992—2006年的面板数据检验了中国区域R&D投入、外商在华直接投资的知识溢出对地区技术进步的影响。研究表明:地区自身科技投入是推动地区技术进步的最主要因素;受中国目前引资结构和质量的影响,外商在华直接投资的知识溢出效应特别是通过FDI企业在当地从事生产活动带来的知识溢出效应并不明显;FDI渠道传递的外国R&D资本对技术进步的促进作用与当地的经济、科技发展水平有着密切关系。在上述结论的基础上,论文对中国FDI引资战略和区域经济发展提出了相应的政策建议。     

An empirical study on FDI international knowledge spillovers and regional economic development in China

This article has constructed a framework to analyze the relationship between national innovation investments, international knowledge spillover due to FDI and regional technological progress. We use the panel data sample in 1992–2006 from China’s 29 provinces (municipalities or autonomous regions) to test the impact of China’s regional R&;D investments, international knowledge spillovers of FDI on its regional technological progress. It reveals that the local investments in science and technology are the most important factors to promote technological progress; for the structure and quality of China’s current FDI, the knowledge spillover effects from FDI, especially through the FDI enterprises’ manufacturing activities, are not obvious; the local gains in its technology development from FDI depends on its economic and technological level. Based on the above conclusions we give the corresponding policy recommendations for China’s FDI policy and regional economic development.     

基于因子分析的我国34省市专利发展实证研究

专利的定量研究对于完善地区专利决策、提高地区专利发展水平具有重要意义。运用因子分析方法,对我国34个省、市、自治区、直辖市的专利发展情况进行实证研究。结果表明,地区专利发展水平与经济发展具有一定的关系,但是,这种关系是相对而非绝对的,不同地区具有不同的比较优势,整体水平相同的地区,其优势可能不同,而整体水平不同的地区,其优势却可能相同。     

关于江苏南北共建开发区体制机制创新的调查与思考

江苏根据地域特点和南北经济发展梯级差异明显的省情,新世纪之初就提出了＂苏南提升、苏中崛起、苏北振兴＂的区域协调发展战略,2006年又依据这一战略做出了支持南北挂钩共建苏北开发区的重大决策,开始了南北共建开发区的创新实践。南北共建开发区成为拉动苏北发展的强大引擎,实现了苏北发展与苏南转型的＂双赢＂。园区共建的＂江苏经验＂在全国引起广泛关注。南北共建开发区在取得阶段性成效的同时,也还存在着一定的问题。在对策选择上,应进一步完善南北共建模式;进一步拓展共建园区的空间;进一步完善制度设计;大胆推行＂行政托管＂等创新性的行政资源要素重组模式,实现行政区划的＂体制内＂变革,让行政区划为经济让路,深化南北共建园区的内涵,推动南北共建园区的可持续发展。     

The relevance of commuting zones for regional spending efficiency

We use data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency scores to show that clustering municipalities into encompassing regional clusters improves spending efficiency of single stand-alone municipalities. We propose a new geographic aggregation based on municipalities-to-municipalities commuting flows, defined using hierarchical cluster analysis. Our example for Portugal shows that from an output-oriented perspective between 83% and 98% of municipalities would increase their efficiency scores, while from an input-oriented perspective between 86% and 98% of municipalities would also be better off in terms of efficiency. Then using a linear regression model, we find that population increases positively affects the efficient scores (via scale economies). Also, increases in the share of high-educated and poorer residents leads to higher efficiency scores.     

Can gender quotas break down negative stereotypes? Evidence from changes in electoral rules

In this paper, we analyze the effect of gender quotas on women's involvement in political activity by using a rich data set providing information on all Italian local administrators who were elected from 1985 to 2007. Gender quotas were introduced by law in Italy in 1993 and were in force until 1995. Because of the short period covered by the reform, some municipalities never voted under the gender quota regime. This allows us to identify a treatment and a control group and to estimate the effects of gender quotas by using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy. Our estimates show that women's representation in politics after the reform increased significantly more in municipalities that were affected by the reform than in municipalities that were not affected. This result also holds true if we exclude from our analysis elections which took place during the period in which the reform was in force. Moreover, the higher women's representation in “gender quota municipalities” is not related to the advantages that women who were elected during the reform have obtained from incumbency and does not seem to be driven by differences in temporal trends between Southern and Northern regions. These findings suggest that affirmative actions can be of use in breaking down stereotypes against women.     

Encouraging skill development: Evidence from public-private partnerships in education in Russia’s regions

How and when are governments able to encourage firms and schools to work together to develop workers’ skills? Upgrading the quality of human capital in the workforce is widely seen as a key challenge faced by countries looking to escape the “middle income trap.” Growing attention has been paid to public-private partnerships (PPP) between individual firms and schools as a powerful tool for meeting this challenge, but key facilitators of PPP thought crucial in existing studies – strong, independent employers’ associations and labor unions – are often missing in such settings. To explore the emergence of PPP in skill development in the developing world, we draw on recent reform experiences in Russia’s regions that have led to a surge in complex, costly forms of PPP despite weakly developed business associations and unions. We argue that variation in the administrative capacity of regional governments and their political accountability explains this surge. Strong administrative capacity reassures all parties that regional authorities can monitor their counterparties’ compliance with agreements, while political accountability creates incentives for authorities to do so. We test our argument using original data on the existence and content of firm-school partnerships across all Russia’s regions for 2013.     

Local Administration Reform in Estonia: Alternatives from an Economic Point of View

As the Estonian experience with local taxes has turned out in the last decade small rural municipalities have not been able to profit from the right to collect local taxes. Tax collecting and administrative costs have been too high. Therefore the local administrative system did not succeed and developed into a grants-in-aid system during the transition process. But from an allocational point of view such a development is not satisfactory. Incentives for local governments to save taxpayers' money and to seek new industrial establishments intensively are lacking. Only an administrative system characterised by institutional competition can solve these problems. In this article the advantages of institutional competition between local jurisdictions in Estonia are discussed. Additionally, a concrete system of competing enlarged counties is recommended.     

Political budget cycles and reelection prospects in Greece's municipalities

This paper considers the presence of political budget cycles in Greece's municipalities. We construct a new dataset from primary sources and we find strong evidence of pre-electoral manipulation through increased expenditures and excessive borrowing. We use a dynamic panel data approach producing evidence of opportunistic behavior in local government finances. Our results are robust in the face of a series of controls including mayors running for reelection, their political alignment with the central government, and prolonged terms. Moreover, the results are robust to the exclusion of small sized municipalities and to the restriction of the time range of our investigation to the post-Maastricht period. We also consider whether opportunistic policies influence incumbents' reelection prospects finding that increased expenditures and election year opportunistic excesses are electorally rewarding. Our findings provide a characterization of opportunistic public finance management in Greek municipalities where electorally motivated budgetary decisions appear impervious to the various municipal reform attempts.     

中国农村经济发展水平的区域差异分析

以大陆31个省级行政区为基本区域单元,选取18项代表农村经济发展水平的评价指标,利用SPSS13对2007年中国农村经济发展水平进行主成分分析,并通过系统聚类法进行分类,结果表明:中国农村经济发展水平存在明显的区域差异,主要表现地区间的东西差异,地区内的南北差异和省域上的民族区与直辖市的差异,最后分析了差异原因并提出缩小农村经济区域差异的基本思路。     

Is centralization a solution to the soft budget constraint problem?

This paper focuses on the centralization program implemented in Israel in 2004 to analyze whether the administrative subordination of municipalities is an effective policy to deal with problems related to soft-budget constraint of lower level governments. The results consistently show, for different specifications and samples of municipalities, that this program brought a substantial decrease of municipalities’ expenditures (mostly because of decreases in salary payments), and an increase of local property tax collection. Our analysis shows that all of the fiscal impact of the program is due to the appointment of an accountant that reports directly to the central government, a relatively mild form of administrative subordination. In contrast, more intrusive forms of subordination, like the central imposition of a recovery program, do not result in any substantial improvement of municipalities’ fiscal situation. This leads us to conclude that a mild form of administrative subordination is an effective tool to cope with problems related to soft-budget constraints, whereas political subordination is not an effective tool to reach that goal.     

全面创新改革试验对区域创新能力的影响效应与传导机制

将2015年开始的全面创新改革试验作为一项准自然试验,构建双重差分模型,基于2008-2018年中国内地31个省份面板数据,实证评估全面创新改革试验对区域创新能力的影响效应。进一步,构建中介效应模型,从财政手段和金融手段两条路径实证检验全面创新改革试验对区域创新能力的传导机制。结果发现：全面创新改革试验能够显著提升试验区创新能力,这一结论在经过平行趋势检验与安慰剂检验后仍然稳健。经济发展水平、技术市场活跃度、人力资本水平和产业结构均对区域创新能力具有显著正向影响,但经济开放度的影响效应不显著。此外,全面创新改革试验通过财政手段和金融手段有效提升试验区创新能力。未来,政府应加大对科技创新活动的支持力度,提高财政研发投入,加快科技与金融结合步伐,不断促进各创新要素集聚与协同。     

珠江三角洲城市区域空间演化研究

行政区划调整既是城市化发展的结果,也是管窥和衡量城市化发展阶段的重要标志。以珠三角行政区划调整为主线,从历史视角回顾了珠三角城市区域空间演化的过程,并总结归纳出若干特征。改革开放以来,珠三角城市区域空间演化可分为三个阶段：从单中心城市到城镇密集区,从城市密集区到城市群,从城市群到大都市区（或都市连绵区）。空间演化主要特征包括：“外引内联型”要素配置模式,自下而上的“内部膨胀型”空间演化模式,正式的行政区划调整和非正式的区域协调机制相结合的“双轨制”区域治理演化模式等。随着城市化的快速发展,珠三角城市区域应逐步从强调城市竞争的“行政区经济”向提倡合作的大都市区治理转变。     

Cost savings in unit-based pricing of household waste: The case of The Netherlands

We estimate the effects of four unit-based pricing systems on waste collected in Dutch municipalities. Unit-based pricing is shown to be effective in reducing unsorted and compostable waste and in stimulating recyclable waste. If the estimations are corrected for differences in environmental activism between municipalities the effects are still large but significantly lower. The bag- and weight-based systems perform equally and far better compared with the frequency- and volume-based systems. This is interesting, as administrative costs are significantly lower for the bag-based system. Finally, unit-based pricing has no effect on the amounts of waste collected in surrounding municipalities.     

基于结构方程模型的区域创新能力评价

区域创新能力的评价结果对于地方政府准确地判断自身的创新能力现状以及制定相关发展政策具有重要的实践意义。鉴于此,本文根据区域创新能力评价指标体系设计的原则,构建了我国区域创新能力评价的指标体系,在此基础之上,建立了我国区域创新能力评价的结构方程模型,并对我国31个省、市、自治区的区域创新能力进行实证研究。评价结果显示,我国区域创新能力大致呈阶梯状分布,东部沿海地区如广东等地区创新能力较强,地处偏远的西部地区如西藏等地区创新能力较弱,而中部地区创新能力则处于中等水平。根据此评价结果,文后给出了提高我国区域创新能力的一些政策建议,如加强自主创新型人才培养,建立跨区域协同发展机制以及强化官、产、学合作力度等。     

The impact of gender quotas on electoral participation: Evidence from Italian municipalities

We analyze the effect of gender quotas on electoral participation by using a dataset regarding Italian municipal elections. Gender quotas were in force in Italy from 1993 to 1995. Given the short period covered by the reform, some municipalities never voted using a gender quota. We identify a treatment and a control group and estimate the effects of gender quotas by using a Difference-in-Differences estimation strategy. Electoral turnout shows a decreasing trend, but turnout decreased significantly less in municipalities affected by the reform, suggesting that gender quotas produced an increase in electoral participation. The effect on electoral turnout is driven by an increase in valid ballots. The effect is smaller in the southern part of the country, which typically manifests more traditional gender roles. We also find that female electors react more than males.     

区域旅游开发的政府行为问题研究

通过对区域旅游开发中政府行为问题的研究 ,论文认为必须改变政府旅游规划的决策行为 ,打破公共旅游产品投资的政府行政垄断 ,放宽非国有经济投资旅游产品的领域 ,加快旅游资源产权制度和管理制度改革 ,实现旅游业的可持续发展。本文特别为我国中西部已列入“十五”计划的旅游项目的规划和实施提供理论准备。     

区划调整的城市化逻辑与效应

改革开放后,地方政府成为中国城市化进程中的主导力量,"市管县""撤县设区"等行政区划调整政策成为推动城市化的主要手段。但是,对于城市发展中的政府作用和区划调整,既有研究基于多方治理视角,多持批判和否定态度。文章以主体行为视角来考察地方政府的作用,并提出了区划调整推动城市化发展的逻辑框架。研究发现,通过区划调整,地方政府实现了从城市型政区向地域型政区的转变,利用权力的集中化以及城市增长极的扩散效应,推动城乡融合和一体化发展。同时,通过实证表明,区划调整带动了乡村地区的基础设施、产业结构、社会管理、居民意识向城市属性转变,最终实现了"真"的城市化,验证了"政区合并先导型城市化"的有效性。