税收竞争与政治学：双重激励再考察

1引言目前关于资本税收竞争方面的论著浩如烟海,但迄今为止,却鲜有人对税收竞争程度与确定税收的政治过程二者之间的相互作用做出系统分析。不过,Persson和Tabellini早在1992年就对这个问题提出了重要观点,他们强调,在存在税收竞争的情况下,一国投票者通常会通过选择候选人来实现其投票策略,候选人一旦执政将会对资本课以更高的税收,税负会高于中间投票人所意愿的税负。在他们的模型中,假设候选人占有的资本要素少于中间投     

The informational effects of competition and collusion in legislative politics

We use a mechanism design approach to study the organization of interest groups in an informational model of lobbying. Interest groups influence the legislature only by communicating private information on their preferences and not by means of monetary transfers. Interest groups have private information on their ideal points in a one-dimensional policy space and may either compete or adopt more collusive behaviors. Optimal policies result from a trade-off between imposing rules which are non-responsive to the groups' preferences and flexibility that pleases groups better. Within a strong coalition, interest groups credibly share information which facilitates communication of their joint interests, helps screening by the legislature and induces flexible policies responsive to the groups' joint interests (an informativeness effect). Competing interest groups better transmit information on their individual preferences (a screening effect). The socially and privately optimal organization of lobbying favors competition between groups only when their preferences are not too congruent with those of the legislature. With more congruence, a strong coalition is preferred. Finally, within a weak coalition, interest groups must design incentive compatible collusive mechanisms to share information. Such weak coalitions are always inefficient.     

政治竞争与相互直接投资

This paper investigates a basic question about the international political economy—why is international trade not free? To answer this question, we modified Grossman and Helpman (1994) by considering that interest lobbies make political contributions to both the incumbent government and the political challenger in order to influence the incumbent government’s choice of trade policy. By examining the contribution schedules under a framework of bilateral direct investments, we find that the modified Ramsey rule still holds under our setting.     

Political motivations and electoral competition: Equilibrium analysis and experimental evidence

We study both theoretically and experimentally the set of Nash equilibria of a classical one-dimensional election game with two candidates. These candidates are interested in power and ideology, but their weights on these two motives are not necessarily identical. Apart from obtaining the well known median voter result and the two-sided policy differentiation outcome, the paper uncovers the existence of two new equilibrium configurations, called ‘one-sided’ and ‘probabilistic’ policy differentiation, respectively. Our analysis shows how these equilibrium configurations depend on the relative interests in power (resp., ideology) and the uncertainty about votersʼ preferences. The theoretical predictions are supported by the data collected from a laboratory experiment, as we observe convergence to the Nash equilibrium values at the aggregate as well as at the individual levels in all treatments, and the comparative statics effects across treatments are as predicted by the theory.     

Political entrepreneurship,emergent dynamics,and constitutional politics

Constitutional political economy mostly distinguishes between rules and actions, with rules selected prior to actions within those rules. While we accept the coherence of this distinction, we pursue it within an open rather than closed scheme of analysis. Doing this entails recognition that societies rarely exhibit universal agreement about constitutional provisions. Recognizing the incomplete character of constitutional agreement points to the existence of margins of contestation. Along those margins, political entrepreneurship will be active in promoting support for alternative constitutional interpretations. Within open systems of creative and entrepreneurial action, constitutional reinterpretation is continually injected into society. Acquiescence in the presence of power does not imply agreement about its use. Rather, acquiescence means the constitutional contestation becomes an element of ordinary politics and not an activity that is prior to ordinary politics. It also means that emergent dynamics supplements comparative statics as a method of analysis.     

Political competition in a model of economic growth: Some theoretical results

Summary We analyze the role of political competition on the type of economic policies that are selected in a one sector model of economic growth. We identify conditions under which neoclassical optimal growth plans occur, and conditions in which political business cycles occur. We find that the ability commit to multiperiod economic policy leads to less political stability of economic plans.Support for this research was provided in part by NSF grant #SES-9022932 to the California Institute of Technology. We are grateful to a referee for pointing out that our results could be extended to supra majority rules, as in Proposition 1.     

Evaluating the flipped classroom: A randomized controlled trial

Despite recent interest in flipped classrooms, rigorous research evaluating their effectiveness is sparse. In this study, the authors implement a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of a flipped classroom technique relative to a traditional lecture in an introductory undergraduate econometrics course. Random assignment enables the analysis to eliminate other potential explanations of performance differences between the flipped and traditional classrooms, while assignment of experimental condition by section and lesson enables improved statistical precision. The authors find that the flipped classroom increases scores on medium-term, high-stakes assessments by 0.16 standard deviation, with similar long-term effects for high-performing students. Estimated impacts are robust to alternative specifications accounting for possible spillover effects arising from the experimental design.     

Voting with your feet: Political competition and internal migration in the United States

Do people “vote with their feet” in response to a lack of political competition? Since political competition is associated with higher growth and welfare, with the free movement of labour, we argue that it should also encourage inward migration. We test this hypothesis by using data from the US and find a strong positive relation between political competition and net migration. This result is robust to alternative specifications, alternative samples and addressing endogeneity using the Voting Rights Act to instrument for political competition. The effect is economically large, specifically, we find that an increase in political competition in the order of magnitude observed in US Southern states during the post-war period leads to an increase in net migration by between 27 and 44 individuals per 1000 population.     

Competitive experimentation with private information: The survivor's curse

We study a winner-take-all R&D race between two firms that are privately informed about the arrival rate of an invention. Over time, each firm only observes whether the opponent left the race or not. The equilibrium displays a strong herding effect, that we call a ‘survivor's curse.’ Unlike in the case of symmetric information, the two firms may quit the race (nearly) simultaneously even when their costs and benefits for research differ significantly.     

政治关联对我国民营企业多元化经营的影响

以2010年沪深A股539家民营上市公司为研究对象,实证研究了民营企业董事长的政府背景与企业多元化经营间的关系,并将政治关联分为曾在政府部门任职和担任代表委员两种情况。结果显示：政治关联显著地影响了民营企业的多元化经营,其中有政治关联企业的多元化程度要高于非政治关联企业。在考虑不同地区的市场化水平后,研究发现市场化水平越低的地区拥有政治关联背景的董事长越有可能实施多元化经营。政府干预越强烈,对民营企业的经营影响程度就越大。     

Political competition,tax salience and accountability. Theory and evidence from Italy

This paper argues that electoral competition may hinder rather than foster political accountability, especially when elected officers can choose among a number of tax instruments. We develop a political agency model showing that politicians in more competitive jurisdictions use less salient tax instruments more intensely. Defining salience as visibility or, analogously, as voters' awareness of the costs associated with specific government revenue sources, we argue that voters are less likely to hold politicians to account for the associated tax burden of a less salient instrument. This in turn implies that strategic politicians will more heavily rely on less salient revenue sources when electoral competition is stronger. Using data on Italian municipal elections and taxes over a 10-year period, we determine the degree of salience of various tax instruments, including property taxes (high salience) and government fees for official documents (low salience). We then show that mayors facing stronger competition for re-election use less salient tax instruments more intensely.     

The simple analytics of information and experimentation in dynamic agency

Summary. The dynamics of a stochastic, two–period principal–agent relationship is studied. The agent's type remains the same over time. Contracts are short term. The principal designs the second contract, taking the information available about the agent after the first period into account. Compared to deterministic environments significant changes emerge: First, fully separating contracts are optimal. Second, the principal has two opposing incentives when designing contracts: the principal ‘experiments,’ making signals more informative; yet dampens signals, thereby reducing up–front payments. As a result, ‘good’ agents' targets are ratcheted over time. Received: November 28, 2000; revised version: December 1, 2000     

Ramsey pricing and competition: The consequences of myopic regulation

This paper addresses the welfare consequences of applying the Ramsey rule when the regulated firm is not a monopolist in all of its markets. The partially regulated optimum and the outcome of myopic regulation, the Short-Sighted Ramsey Equilibrium (SSRE), are examined in a differentiated duopoly model. In the optimum, the markup of competitive substitute goods is relatively high. In the SSRE, the regulator is likely to set the price of competitive substitute goods lower than optimal, and complementary goods higher than optimal. Strategic reactions by a competitor may reverse the result.I thank Kenneth Train, Michael Crew (the editor), seminar participants at the University of California, Berkeley, and an anonymous referee for comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Minimizing selection bias in randomized trials: A Nash equilibrium approach to optimal randomization

Randomized trials can be compromised by selection bias, particularly when enrollment is sequential and previous assignments are unmasked. In such contexts, an appropriate randomization procedure minimizes selection bias while satisfying the need for treatment balance. This paper presents optimal randomization mechanisms based on non-cooperative game theory and the statistics of selection bias. For several different clinical trial examples, we examine subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, which dictates a probability distribution on suitable assignment sequences. We find that optimal procedures do not involve discrete uniform distributions, because minimizing predictability is not equivalent to minimizing selection bias.     

The dynamics of distributive politics

We study dynamic committee bargaining over an infinite horizon with discounting. In each period, a committee proposal is generated by a random recognition rule, the committee chooses between the proposal and a status quo by majority rule, and the voting outcome in period t becomes the status quo in period t + 1. We study symmetric Markov equilibria of the resulting game and conduct an experiment to test hypotheses generated by the theory for pure distributional (divide-the-dollar) environments. In particular, we investigate the effects of concavity in the utility functions, the existence of a Condorcet winning alternative, and the discount factor (committee “impatience”). We report several new findings. Voting behavior is selfish and myopic. Status quo outcomes have great inertia. There are strong treatment effects that are in the direction predicted by the Markov equilibrium. We find significant evidence of concave utility functions.     

The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians

We try to demonstrate how economists may engage in research on comparative politics, relating the size and composition of government spending to the political system. A Downsian model of electoral competition and forward-looking voting indicates that majoritarian – as opposed to proportional – elections increase competition between parties by focusing it into some key marginal districts. This leads to less public goods, less rents for politicians, more redistribution and larger government. A model of legislative bargaining and backward-looking voting indicates that presidential – as opposed to parliamentary – regimes increase competition between both politicians and voters. This leads to less public goods, less rents for politicians, less redistribution, and smaller government. We confront these predictions with cross-country data from around 1990, controlling for economic and social determinants of government spending. We find strong and robust support for the prediction that the size of government is smaller under presidential regimes, and weaker support for the prediction that majoritarian elections are associated with less public goods.     

The politics of pollution: party regimes and air quality in Canada

Abstract. Environmental concerns often figure prominently in opinion polls. But do election outcomes actually affect the environment? I test the influence of the party in power on urban air pollution in 13 Canadian cities. The government's political stripe is not reliably associated with positive or negative effects on air pollution. Provincial parties on both the right and the left are associated with elevated levels of some air contaminants. Federal effects also go in contrasting directions. Overall it appears a change in government is unlikely to be a reliable predictor of changes in air pollution. JEL classification: Q51, Q58, D78