Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process

A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.     

A gramscian perspective on field dynamics. The case of the privatization of Italian steel industry

Institutional fields are not static, they undergo times of fragmentation and times of settlement. Neo-institutional research has long explained the settlement of fields as either the effect of political manoeuvring of actors, or of discursive activity influencing cultural codes, narratives and symbols. But can these processes really be considered in isolation? In this paper, we propose to adopt a comprehensive view on fields’ dynamics, one that embraces the interaction of political and discursive manoeuvring to explain how fragmented fields manage to settle. To do so, we build on the Gramscian concept of hegemonic practices as discursive and political processes that integrate cultural equivalence among actors with political alliances based on aligned interests. Hegemonic practices align actors in a new historical bloc (a new settlement). Through this lens, we interpret the case of the Italian State steel privatization (1984–1995) and propose a process model explaining what yields fields’ dynamics from fragmentation to settlement. The model highlights the action of diffused agency in field dynamics, thus overcoming the obsolete challenger/incumbent view, and the need of becoming a historical bloc for alliances to stabilize a field.     

Parties,divided government,and infrastructure expenditures: Evidence from U.S. states

This paper examines the impact of parties and divided government on infrastructure expenditures for transportation, education, and social services in U.S. states. As infrastructure expenditures are considered a bi-partisan priority, we hypothesize that divided governments expand infrastructure spending compared to governments under true Democratic or Republican control. We test this hypothesis using U.S. state-level data over the period 1970 to 2008 and find that divided governments indeed increase expenditures for these budget categories. Specifically, divided governments spend more on transportation than unified Democratic governments, and more on education and social services than unified Republican governments. The effect is most pronounced for the core infrastructure of transportation and even stronger when only looking at capital outlays instead of total expenditures.     

乡村集体经济发展的全面振兴价值与实践途径——以福建省南安市蓉中村为例

乡村振兴是时代的使命,乡村振兴的基础是经济的振兴,关键是新时代理念下的集体经济发展。只有集体经济发展了,才能充分体现社会主义农村经济制度的优越性,适应乡村全面振兴的要求,为乡村基层组织提高引领力、组织力和战斗力奠定基础;为乡村经济、政治、文化与环境全面协调发展提供支撑,为乡村居民实现美好生活建立基本保障。而乡村集体经济发展的重要途径在于始终坚持习近平总书记提出的具有普遍指导意义的"晋江经验";在于坚持因地制宜地选择产业、依托龙头企业,在城乡统筹中走抱团发展之路;在于坚持辩证统一观念下的"口袋"与"脑袋"、经济与社会、内涵发展与外在协作的协调与推动。     

Policy uncertainty and overseas property purchases: Evidence from China

A political leadership transition occurs in China every five years. This shift in leadership is accompanied by tremendous uncertainty within Chinese society, particularly for the nation's wealthy people. Examining private residential property transaction data in Singapore, this paper reveals that the number of transactions by Chinese mainland buyers increases by half during political transitions that occurred between 1998 and 2013, in comparison to buyers from Malaysia, the US, and Hong Kong.     

Political stability and trade agreements: Evidence for ‘endgame FTAs’

This paper empirically examines the idea that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are more likely to be signed by governments playing ‘endgames’; that is, when governments are about to lose power. Two empirical strategies shed light on this hypothesis. One relies on events that increase the probability of political turnover, the other on term limits. I find that countries are more likely to sign FTAs after the unexpected exit of their leaders, when political instability is high. The key finding is partly confirmed in the term-limits strategy as governments are found to form more FTAs during their last term in office.     

数字经济背景下深圳居民消费结构变迁分析

近年来,伴随着我国电商交易规模的不断增加,数字经济蓬勃发展,逐渐成为改善消费环境、促进经济发展的新引擎。同时,数字经济具有很强的网络效应,可以带动居民消费实现转型升级。本文结合2008—2018年的电商交易规模与深圳消费结构相关数据,从衣、食、住、行等方面分析了居民消费结构的变化趋势。本研究认为居民收入增加、商品价格变动、粤港澳大湾区建设等是影响深圳居民消费的重要因素,最后给出实现深圳居民消费结构升级的相关建议。     

Migration and imperfect labor markets: Theory and cross-country evidence from Denmark,Germany and the UK

We investigate the labor market effects of immigration in Denmark, Germany and the UK, three countries which are characterized by considerable differences in labor market institutions and welfare states. Institutions such as collective bargaining, minimum wages, employment protection and unemployment benefits affect the way in which wages respond to labor supply shocks, and, hence, the labor market effects of immigration. We employ a wage-setting approach which assumes that wages decline with the unemployment rate, albeit imperfectly. We find that the wage and employment effects of immigration depend on wage flexibility and the composition of the labor supply shock. In Germany immigration involves only moderate wage, but large unemployment effects, since immigrants are concentrated in labor market segments with low wage flexibility. The reverse is true for the UK and Denmark.     

How risky is a random process?

The riskiness of random processes is compared by (a) employing a decision theoretic equivalence between processes and lotteries on path-spaces to identify the riskiness of the former with that of the latter, and (b) using the theory of comparative riskiness of lotteries over vector spaces to compare the riskiness of lotteries on a given path-space. We derive the equivalence used in step (a) and contribute a new criterion to the theory applied in step (b). The validity of the new criterion, which applies second order stochastic dominance to utility distributions, is established by showing its equivalence to the benchmark decision theoretic criterion when comparing the riskiness of lotteries over any vector space. We demonstrate the theory’s tractability via diverse economic applications.     

要素禀赋、政策支持与金融资源配置:产业转移的承接模式研究

本文以商务部认定的湖南、江西省四个加工贸易梯度转移重点承接地为样本,对比分析要素禀赋、政策支持和金融资源配置的异同及其影响,在总结归纳各自承接模式的特点的基础上,提出了"精品园区+核心企业+直接融资+金融助推"的较优模式,认为政策支持是影响承接产业转移的直接因素;要素禀赋的影响力有弱化趋势;金融资源配置是影响承接力和产业结构优化升级的重要因素;对待处于不同生命周期的产业转移企业,承接的工作重点应各有侧重.因此,承接产业转移要与"转方式、调结构"的战略方向一致.注重与本地的产业互补相结合,并需要金融部门的主动参与和服务创新.