This article explains why decentralization can undermine accountability and answers three questions: what determines if power should be centralized or decentralized when regions are heterogeneous? ...How many levels of government should there be? How should state borders be drawn? We develop a model of political agency in which voters differ in their ability to monitor rent-seeking politicians. We find that rent extraction is a decreasing and convex function of the share of informed voters, because voter information improves monitoring but also reduces the appeal of holding office. As a result, information heterogeneity pushes toward centralization to reduce rent extraction. Taste heterogeneity pulls instead toward decentralization to match local preferences. Our model thus implies that optimal borders should cluster by tastes but ensure diversity of information. We also find economies of scope in accountability that explain why multiplying government tiers harms efficiency. A single government in charge of many policies has better incentives than many special-purpose governments splitting its budget and responsibilities. Hence, a federal system is desirable only if information varies enough across regions.
Cities, skills and regional change Glaeser, Edward L; Ponzetto, Giacomo A. M; Tobio, Kristina
Regional studies,
01/2014, Volume:
48, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Glaeser E. L., Ponzetto G. A. M. and Tobio K. Cities, skills and regional change, Regional Studies. One approach to urban areas emphasizes the existence of certain immutable relationships, such as ...Zipf's or Gibrat's law. An alternative view is that urban change reflects individual responses to changing tastes or technologies. This paper examines almost 200 years of regional change in the United States and finds that few, if any, growth relationships remain constant, including Gibrat's law. Education does a reasonable job of explaining urban resilience in recent decades, but it does not seem to predict county growth a century ago. After reviewing this evidence, a simple model of regional change is presented and estimated, where education increases the level of entrepreneurship. Human capital spillovers occur at the city level because skilled workers produce more product varieties and thereby increase labour demand. It is found that skills are associated with growth in productivity or entrepreneurship, not with growth in quality of life, at least outside of the West. It is also found that skills seem to have depressed housing supply growth in the West, but not in other regions, which supports the view that educated residents in that region have fought for tougher land-use controls. Evidence is also presented that skills have had a disproportionately large impact on unemployment during the current recession.
Clusters of entrepreneurship Glaeser, Edward L.; Kerr, William R.; Ponzetto, Giacomo A.M.
Journal of urban economics,
2010, 2010-1-00, 20100101, Volume:
67, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Employment growth is strongly predicted by smaller average establishment size, both across cities and across industries within cities, but there is little consensus on why this relationship exists. ...Traditional economic explanations emphasize factors that reduce entry costs or raise entrepreneurial returns, thereby increasing net returns and attracting entrepreneurs. A second class of theories hypothesizes that some places are endowed with a greater supply of entrepreneurship. Evidence on sales per worker does not support the higher returns for entrepreneurship rationale. Our evidence suggests that entrepreneurship is higher when fixed costs are lower and when there are more entrepreneurial people.
Why does democracy need education? Glaeser, Edward L; Ponzetto, Giacomo A. M; Shleifer, Andrei
Journal of economic growth,
06/2007, Volume:
12, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Across countries, education and democracy are highly correlated. We motivate empirically and then model a causal mechanism explaining this correlation. in our model, schooling teaches people to ...interact with others and raises the benefits of civic participation, including voting and organizing. In the battle between democracy and dictatorship, democracy has a wide potential base of support but offers weak incentives to its defenders. Dictatorship provides stronger incentives to a narrower base. As education raises the benefits of civic engagement, it raises participation in support of a broad-based regime (democracy) relative to that in support of a narrow-based regime (dictatorship). This increases the likelihood of successful democratic revolutions against dictatorships, and reduces that of successful anti-democratic coups.
Linked ContentThis article is linked to Feagins and Krill et al papers. To view these articles visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.14258 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.14121.
Linked Content
This article is linked to Kuipers and Pittayanon et al papers. To view these articles visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.14155 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.14082.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are natural, single-stranded, small RNA molecules which subtly control gene expression. Several studies indicate that specific miRNAs can regulate heart function both in ...development and disease. Despite prevention programs and new therapeutic agents, cardiovascular disease remains the main cause of death in developed countries. The elevated number of heart failure episodes is mostly due to myocardial infarction (MI). An increasing number of studies have been carried out reporting changes in miRNAs gene expression and exploring their role in MI and heart failure. In this review, we furnish a critical analysis of where the frontier of knowledge has arrived in the fields of basic and translational research on miRNAs in cardiac ischemia. We first summarize the basal information on miRNA biology and regulation, especially concentrating on the feedback loops which control cardiac-enriched miRNAs. A focus on the role of miRNAs in the pathogenesis of myocardial ischemia and in the attenuation of injury is presented. Particular attention is given to cardiomyocyte death (apoptosis and necrosis), fibrosis, neovascularization, and heart failure. Then, we address the potential of miR-diagnosis (miRNAs as disease biomarkers) and miR-drugs (miRNAs as therapeutic targets) for cardiac ischemia and heart failure. Finally, we evaluate the use of miRNAs in the emerging field of regenerative medicine.
Party platforms differ sharply from one another, especially on issues with religious content, such as abortion or gay marriage. Given the high return to attracting the median voter, why do ...vote-maximizing politicians take extreme positions? In this paper we find that strategic extremism depends on an intensive margin where politicians want to induce their core constituents to vote (or make donations) and the ability to target political messages toward those core constituents. Our model predicts that the political relevance of religious issues is highest when around one-half of the voting population attends church regularly. Using data from across the world and within the United States, we indeed find a nonmonotonic relationship between religious extremism and religious attendance.
PDF
