The effects of economic and political integration on fiscal decentralization: evidence from OECD countries

Abstract .  This paper examines the impact of economic and political integration on the vertical government structure. It argues that, by increasing the market size and the benefits of decentralized provision of public goods, integration triggered the recent process of decentralization in OECD countries. A panel analysis relates the degree of fiscal decentralization to economic and European integration, controlling for interregional heterogeneity, economies of scale, and institutions. The results mostly support a decentralizing effect of economic integration in general and of European integration in particular for heterogeneous EU countries, whereas participation of subnational governments in national decision-making is associated with more centralization.     

Passports for sale: The political economy of conflict and cooperation in a meta-club

Some of the member states of the European Union sell citizenship or residence to wealthy foreign investors. We analyze these “golden-passport” programs as a study in the political economy of conflict and cooperation in an international meta-club. Seen through the lens of club goods theory, the EU is a club of nations, each of which can be interpreted as itself a club. Each single nation reserves the right to govern the admission of new individual members into its own club, and new members automatically benefit from the EU wide meta-club good. We characterize the unique equilibrium when individual clubs that may differ in membership size are free to choose the terms on which they admit members, and evaluate it from the point of view of the wellbeing of the set of clubs as a whole. We identify club size and benefits as well as differences in cost externalities as the key determinants. We also consider how the set of clubs as a whole can respond to the economic inefficiency problems such a situation creates.     

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.     

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.     

Interregional redistribution and budget institutions under asymmetric information

Empirical evidence from the U.S. and the European Union suggests that regions which contribute to interregional redistribution face weaker borrowing constraints than regions which benefit from interregional redistribution. This paper presents an argument in favor of such differentiated budget institutions. It develops a two period model of a federation consisting of two types of regions. The federal government redistributes from one type of regions (contributors) to the other type (recipients). It is shown that a fiscal constitution with lax budget rules for contributors and strict budget rules for recipients solves the self selection problem the federal government faces in the presence of asymmetric information regarding exogenous characteristics of the regions.     

The political economy of the G20 agenda on financial regulation

The paper empirically examines the implementation record of international financial regulation of the banking sector. The study finds that the size of the banking sector and the presence of global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are positively associated with a stronger implementation record. These results suggest that cooperative motives of internalising externalities, creating a level playing field and preserving financial stability play a role in explaining the implementation record. We find evidence that this cooperative behaviour may be driven by the self-interest of global players as the positive record is particularly strong in countries where large banking sectors and big banks are both present, and where regulation only applies to large players. Sectoral concentration, bank health and the share of foreign ownership yield more mixed results as regards their impact on implementation.     

The political economy of fiscal procyclicality

It is well-recognized that fiscal spending in developing countries tends to display significant procyclicality (increased spending during expansions and vice versa), in contravention of rational stabilization policy. Theoretical explanations have relied on either financial access or political-economic factors to justify this phenomenon. In this paper, we model the fiscal-output relationship as a dcc-garch process, and inquire whether debt or political economy constraints play a comparatively more important role in conditioning this correlation. Our evidence favors a positive effect from political economy, with weaker and more mixed results pertaining to financial access. Somewhat surprisingly, we also find that politics-induced procyclicality appears to be driven by advanced economies, and fiscal rules exacerbate procyclical tendencies.     

Poverty, political freedom, and the roots of terrorism in developing countries: An empirical assessment

We find that political freedom has a significant and non-linear effect on domestic terrorism, but has no statistically significant effect on transnational terrorism. Geography and fractionalization limit a country’s ability to curb terrorism, while strong legal institutions deter terrorism.     

Delay in contests

Why is there delay in contests? In this paper, we follow and extend the line of reasoning of Carl von Clausewitz to explain delay. For a given contest technology, delay may occur if there is an asymmetry between defense and attack, if the expected change in relative strengths is moderate, and if the additional cost of investment in future strength is low.     

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.     

A second chance at success: A political economy perspective

This paper characterizes a stationary Markov-perfect political equilibrium where agents vote over income taxation that distorts educational investment. Agents become rich or poor through educational investment, and the poor have a second chance at success. The results show the following concerning the cost of a second chance. First, when the cost is low, the economy is characterized by high levels of upward mobility and inequality, and a low tax burden supported by the poor with prospects for upward mobility. Second, when the cost is high, there are multiple equilibria with various patterns of upward mobility, inequality and redistribution. Numerical examples show that the shift from a high-cost economy to a low-cost economy may reduce social welfare.     

Exploring the nexus: Foreign aid,war on terror,and conflict in Pakistan

This study explores the nexus between foreign aid, war on terror, and terrorism in Pakistan for the period 1972–2010. By making use of Johansen method of cointegration, the paper concludes that, contrary to the popular assumption, there is no association between foreign assistance and conflict in Pakistan. However, the impact of foreign aid on terrorism is positive in the long run during the war on terror period. Furthermore, the positive impact of GDP on terrorism mirrors the fact that militants consider terrorist attacks a feasible option compare to open war in face of enhanced state capacity. The study also unearths the non-linear U-shape relationship between political repression and violence in the long run.     

The political economy of public education

I study the relationship between income inequality and public spending in education in a voting model. Voters collectively choose the uniform quality level of public education, the amount of a public good, and the tax rate on labor income. Parents can decide to opt-out of the public education system by purchasing private education at the desired quality level, and children’s expected income is assumed to be increasing in the quality of education. I show that higher income inequality is associated with higher governmental spending in education if and only if the expected marginal returns to education are larger for the children of relatively low income parents. In turn, better public education tends to reduce future inequality. These results are consistent with most findings in the empirical literature about public investment in education. Lastly, I show that for other kind of publicly provided goods, such as health care, the relationship with income inequality exhibits an ambiguous or opposite sign.     

Hit and (they will) run: The impact of terrorism on migration

We analyze the influence of terrorism on migration for 152 countries during 1976-2000. We find robust evidence that terrorism is among the ‘push factors’ of skilled migration, whereas it is not robustly associated with average migration.     

Conflict, defense spending, and the number of nations

This paper provides a formal model of endogenous border formation and choice of defense spending in a world with international conflict. We examine both the case of democratic governments and of dictatorships. The model is consistent with three observations. First, breakup of countries should follow a reduction in the likelihood of international conflicts. Second, the number of regional conflicts between smaller countries may increase as a result of the breakup of larger countries. Third, the size of the peace dividend (the reduction in defense spending in a more peaceful world) is limited by the process of country breakup.     

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.     

Aiding violence or peace? The impact of foreign aid on the risk of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper considers the impact of foreign aid flows on the risk of civil conflict. We improve on earlier studies on this topic by addressing the problem of the endogenous aid allocation using GDP levels of donor countries as instruments. A more structural addition to the literature is that we efficiently control for unobserved country specific effects in typical conflict onset and conflict continuation models by first differencing. The literature often overlooks the dynamic nature of these types of models, thereby forcing unlikely i.i.d. structures on the error terms implicitly.¹ As a consequence, malfunctioning institutions, deep-rooted political grievances, or any other obvious, yet unobserved and time persistent determinants of war are simply assumed away. We find a statistically significant and economically important negative effect of foreign aid flows on the probability of ongoing civil conflicts to continue (the continuation probability), such that increasing aid flows tends to decrease civil conflict duration. We do not find a significant relationship between aid flows and the probability of civil conflicts to start (the onset probability).     

The political economy of tariff protection in China: evidence from the WTO accession

We analyze China's tariff rates at WTO accession using a political economy approach. A model drawing on Branstetter and Feenstra ( 2002 ) is used to derive an optimal tariff rate for each industry. The model predicts that a government would set a high tariff rate if an industry is of large state‐owned enterprise (SOE) share, multinational share, or small foreign import share. From the model we reveal the Chinese government's preference towards different interest groups under the binding tariff constraint from the WTO commitments. The estimated structural parameters imply that the political weights on both the SOE profits and consumer income diminish with the economic opening. More important, the government still favours SOEs over consumer income. Our findings are consistent with the special features of China's economy.     

The political economy of conditionality: An empirical analysis of World Bank loan disbursements

Traditional aid conditionality has been attacked as ineffective in part because aid agencies – notably the World Bank – often fail to enforce conditions. This pattern undermines the credibility of conditionality, weakening incentives to implement policy reforms. The standard critique attributes this time inconsistency to bureaucratic factors within the aid agency such as pressure to lend, defensive lending, or short-sighted altruism. Pressure from powerful donors provides another potential explanation for lax enforcement. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the political economy of conditionality in international organizations using the case of the World Bank and the United States. The analysis examines panel data on World Bank disbursements to 97 countries receiving structural adjustment loans between 1984 and 2005. Using UN voting as an indicator of alignment with the U.S., the paper presents evidence that World Bank structural adjustment loan disbursements are less dependent on macroeconomic performance in countries aligned with the United States.     

The tyranny of international index rankings

International index rankings are popular, but perhaps too persuasive. They emphasize country differences where similarity is the dominant feature. Rankings based on Doing Business, the Human Development Index and Freedom House can be misleading, not because of wrong indicators, but because the estimation of the scores ignores inherent uncertainty. Re-estimated with a method that captures this uncertainty, it becomes clear that ranking every adjacent country is a rather courageous activity.