Democrats,republicans, and taxes: Evidence that political parties matter

I estimate the influence of political parties on state Tax Burdens over a 40-year period (1960–2000). Holding constant a large number of state and voter characteristic variables, I find that: (i) Tax Burdens are higher when Democrats control the state legislature compared to when Republicans are in control. (ii) The political party of the governor has little effect after controlling for partisan influences in the state legislature. I explain how both findings are consistent with median voter theory. My results suggest that after 5 years of Democratic control of the legislature, state government would be approximately 3–5% larger than if Republicans controlled the legislature during that same period, with the better specifications producing estimates in the higher end of this range.     

Can media drive the electorate? The impact of media coverage on voting intentions

A growing literature uses media data to explain perception and behaviour in the economic and political context. In this paper, we investigate how media coverage affects political preferences, namely voting intention. For our empirical analysis, we merge 14 years of human-coded data obtained from leading media in Germany with results of the comprehensive German Politbarometer survey from February 1998 through December 2012. In contrast to the existing literature, we do not utilize access to certain media outlets, but use the tonality of articles and newscasts on political parties and politicians based on human coded media data. To account for endogeneity, we employ instrumental variable probit estimations. In addition, we control for a multitude of (internal) personal characteristics, such as age, and gender, as well as for (external) macroeconomic variables, such as business climate, unemployment, and inflation. The results show that media coverage of a political party has a positive and significant effect on the voting intention for this party. When media outlets cover a political party more positively, the electorate has a greater tendency to vote for it. Hence, we conclude that the electoral success or failure of political parties is at least partially caused by the media coverage on them. This hints on the special responsibility of media in democracies.     

Politics and entrepreneurship in the US

There is a strong belief that Republicans are more pro‐business than Democrats. In this paper, we investigate the causal impact of partisan allegiance of governors (Republican or Democratic) on entrepreneurial activity by exploiting random variation in close gubernatorial elections in 50 states over the last three decades in a regression discontinuity design. We find that Republican governors are no different than Democratic governors in their effects on entrepreneurship. Our findings are robust to several sensitivity checks.     

POLITICAL AFFILIATION AND PERCEPTIONS OF TRADE: EXAMINING SURVEY DATA FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

We examine the influences of political party affiliation and self-identification as politically conservative, centrist, or liberal on individuals' trade preferences. Majority support for trade is reported for all political classifications, with Republicans found to be 13.7%–15.1% more likely than Democrats and independents to support trade. Similarly, conservatives are 14.8%–21% more likely to support trade than are centrists and liberals; however, distinctions exist between "very conservative" and "somewhat conservative" cohorts. ( JEL F13)     

The Obama effect? Inspiration and ACT scores

After Barack Obama’s 2008 election to the presidency of the United States, many predicted that the first Black president would inspire a generation of Black Americans, especially students. While stories of Obama inspiring individuals to overachieve are common, it remains to be seen if there was a systemic shift in Black student achievement after Obama’s election. Given the persistent racial score gap between Blacks and Whites on standardized tests, it is important to know if an inspirational figure could have a significant impact. Using ACT data from Chicago Public Schools, I find there is no evidence that Obama’s election had an impact on Black test scores. The racial ACT gap has been increasing since the beginning of the 21st century, and that trend continued after Obama was elected.     

Electoral systems and the effects of political events on the stock market: The Belgian case

Efficient stock markets react to news. News about future economic policies can be derived from political events such as elections, the formation of new governments, changes in the composition of governments, etc. However, the news content of these events depends on the electoral system. In the American electoral system, characterized as it is by majority representation and single–party governments, elections generate news to the extent that the results are unexpected. In countries with proportional representation, governments are frequently multi–party coalitions whose composition is difficult to predict from the election results. These results therefore contain much less information about future policies. Our results, obtained for the Brussels stock market, support this distinction. Furthermore, the ideological composition of the government also matters; these effects support a rational partisan approach.     

LOCAL BENEFIT-SEEKING IN THE LEGISLATURE: AN INVESTIGATION OF CONGRESSIONAL STAFFING DECISIONS*

In prior work, I proposed a prisoner's dilemma theory for the partisan pattern that political ticket splitting has taken in the United States: where Republicans, since 1932, have done consistently better in races for the White House than in contests for Congressional seats. The theory relies on the key assumption that Democratic legislative representatives are more willing to engage in local benefit-seeking. By examining the personal staffing decisions made by members of the House this paper provides some empirical support for such an assumption. Relative to their Republican counterparts, Democratic legislators both hire more personal staff and allocate a higher percentage of the staff hired to district rather than Washington offices.     

美国奥巴马总统“气候行动计划”解读

2013年6月,美国总统奥巴马在华盛顿乔治城大学发表关于应对气候变化的讲话,发布了"总统气候行动计划",重申到2020年美国实现在2005年基础上减排温室气体17%的承诺,并从减少温室气体排放、应对气候变化的不利影响和领导国际合作三个方面系统阐释了美国联邦政府将采取的一系列举措,这是迄今为止美国政府最全面综合的气候政策。通过分析和梳理该"气候行动计划"推出的背景、主要内容以及美国各界的反应等,指出了该计划的实质和存在的一些问题,包括在实施范围、执行力度、持续性和有效性等方面的局限性。     

Independent but Not Indifferent: Partisan Bias in Monetary Policy at the Fed

Independent central banks are thought to be effective inflation hawks because they are run by technocrats with conservative monetary policy preferences. However, central bankers can only protect their independence by compromising with the elected officials who grant them their independence. Policy, therefore, is likely to be a weighted average of the preferences of the central bank and the government. Consequently, central bankers may be eager to help right‐wing governments stay in power and oppose the election of left‐wing governments. We show evidence from the United States that interest rates (a) decline as elections approach when Republicans control the White House, but rise when Democrats do; and (b) are sensitive to the inflation rate (output gap) when Democrats (Republicans) are in the White House. Thus, the Federal Reserve is a conditional inflation hawk. Since the Fed became operationally independent in 1951, the Republicans have exhibited a decided electoral advantage in presidential politics.     

美国先进制造伙伴关系计划及其启示

奥巴马政府执政以来,振兴制造业成为其振兴美国经济的一项重要内容,出台实施了一系列促进制造业发展的政策和措施。2011年6月24日,总统奥巴马又宣布启动了一项价值5亿美元的“先进制造伙伴关系”（AMP）计划,呼吁美国企业、大学以及政府之间应加强合作,共同帮助美国重夺全球制造业领先地位。通过对此计划的具体阐述,获得有益启示,对我国制造业发展提出了几点建议。     

Why the poor do not expropriate the rich: an old argument in new garb

We consider a political economy with two partisan parties; each party represents a given constituency of voters. If one party (Labour) represents poor voters and the other (Christian Democrats) rich voters, if a redistributive tax policy is the only issue, and if there are no incentive considerations, then in equilibrium the party representing the poor will propose a tax rate of unity. If, however, there are two issues – tax policy and religion, for instance – then this is not generally the case. The analysis shows that, if a simple condition on the distribution of voter preferences holds, then, as the salience of the non-economic issue increases, the tax rate proposed by Labour in equilibrium will fall – possibly even to zero – even though a majority of the population may have an ideal tax rate of unity.     

Registered nurses' perspectives on health care and the 2008 presidential election

As this historic presidential election draws near, what do RNs think of our nation's priorities? Which candidates do they think will be most effective in shaping our health care system and addressing the most pressing issues of our time? The results of this survey show that RNs do not identify overwhelmingly with one political ideology or party and, in fact, they closely resemble the public on these political dimensions. The data also show that RNs identify health care issues as the most important problem facing the nation. RNs who believe that it is the responsibility of the government to provide health insurance to those without it, have more confidence in the government to achieve this outcome, and are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. The presidential election is expected to be highly contested and could be determined by a relatively small margin of votes and, thus, nurses should recognize their chances of influencing the outcome of the election. The data from this survey provide baseline information potentially useful to increasing the political influence of the nursing profession, informing other organizations about where they might align with nurses, and helping candidates and the political parties compete more effectively in seeking the support of roughly 3 million RN voters.     

Judicial impartiality in politically charged cases

This paper examines under which institutional and political circumstances tenured public officials make partisan decisions. It analyzes the decisions of the judges from the French supreme administrative court regarding the validity of controverted mayoral elections between 1958 and 2007 and uses the vote differential between winners and losers in each election as a quasi-natural experiment to assess the judges’ impartiality. It appears that the judges became partisan after 1981, when the far-right Front National party started to gain more votes. Before 1981, judges cancelled elections only when the vote differential between the election winner and the closest challenger was small. Afterwards, the affiliation of the parties’ candidates also mattered as judges seldom cancelled elections won by communist, mainstream left-wing and mainstream right-wing politicians.     

EMU-related news and financial markets in the Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland

We analyse the impact of news on five financial markets in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland using a newly constructed data set in a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (GARCH) framework. Macroeconomic shocks (on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), inflation rate, current account and trade balance) are constructed as deviations from expected values. Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)-related political and fiscal news is captured as news dummies. Macroeconomic shocks significantly affect short-term interest rates and, to a lesser extent, other financial variables. Political and fiscal news has an impact on long-term bond yields and exchange rates. News displayed prominently in our media sources has a greater impact on financial markets than other news and, in addition, the sources of news themselves matter. We also discover asymmetric effects of news within markets. Finally, using a pooled GARCH model we find that macroeconomic shocks have the strongest impact on financial markets in Hungary, while political news has the largest influence in both Hungary and Poland.     

论奥巴马政府的对日政策

从2009年1月奥巴马总统执政,到2010年6月鸠山首相辞职,美日同盟关系受到了两次挑战,一次是奥巴马总统调整东亚政策带来的,一次是鸠山首相提出新东亚政策和对美政策带来的。对于这两次挑战,美国政府都采取了积极的安抚政策,打消了日本的担忧,赢得了日本的信任,巩固了美日同盟。美日关系中出现的摩擦都是暂时性的,只要美国政府采取积极的对日安抚政策,日本以美日同盟为基轴的对外政策就不会有本质改变。     

奥巴马政府重视跨部门研发态势——基于美国2014财年总统研发预算的分析

通过分析,美国2014财年总统研发预算申请,可以看出,奥巴马政府近年来高度重视并组织跨部门研发。奥巴马政府2014财年的总统预算申请在先进制造、清洁能源、气候变化等重大研发领域突出跨部门研发,加大经费投入,同时加强对跨部门研发项目的管理。但由于美国联邦政府机构中没有设立综合的科技管理部门,跨部门科技计划的实施和管理也面临着诸多挑战。     

Federal Reserve communications and newswire coverage

In this article, we explore the determinants of newswire coverage of Federal Reserve (Fed) communications. Our sample covers all 344 forward-looking communications made in the period May 1999 to May 2004. We find, first, that there is a higher likelihood of newswire coverage for monetary policy reports and speeches by Chairman Greenspan than for testimony and speeches by other Fed members. Furthermore, communications with an explicit monetary policy inclination or tone different from the current interest rate path are particularly likely to be covered. However, the release of important macroeconomic news reduces the likelihood of newswire coverage. Second, speeches by regional Fed presidents are relatively less likely to be reported than speeches by Board members. Nevertheless, newswire coverage of Fed president speeches is more likely if central bank communication is stale. Finally, our results indicate that Ben Bernanke played a distinguished role even before his Chairmanship.     

奥巴马政府对华政策与中美关系走向

中关关系是当今世界上最重要的双边关系之一。奥巴马政府上台后,一方面致力于同中国建立长期、积极且具有建设性的关系,另一方面在安全领域继续防范中国。奥巴马政府上台后,中美关系实现了平稳过渡,中关在广泛领域进行了合作,但中美之间也有不和谐音。在中美关系实现了最初平稳过渡后,中美之间麻烦凸显,磨擦不断。一个突出的表现是中关经贸磨擦升温。本文详尽阐述了奥巴马政府对华基本政策及当前中美关系状况,深刻剖析了影响奥巴马政府对华政策的因素,并提出了中国应采取的对策。     

Endorse or Not to Endorse: Understanding the Determinants of Newspapers’ Likelihood of Making Political Recommendations

This article investigates the determinants of newspapers’ provision for political opinion. I empirically examine the role of newspapers’ political preferences and market competition on newspapers’ decision to make endorsements. Regression results suggest that market competition turns newspapers more likely to make endorsements. Results from a simple model show that newspapers’ ideology determine their endorsements, making partisan papers more likely to make political recommendations and endorse challengers than non‐partisan newspapers.     

The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled‐labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low‐skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low‐skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high‐skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled‐labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high‐skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade.