Segregation and Black political efficacy Ananat, Elizabeth Oltmans; Washington, Ebonya
Journal of public economics,
06/2009, Letnik:
93, Številka:
5
Journal Article
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The impact of segregation on Black political efficacy is theoretically ambiguous. On one hand, increased contact among Blacks in more segregated areas may mean that Blacks are better able to ...coordinate political behavior. On the other hand, lesser contact with non-Blacks may mean that Blacks have less political influence over voters of other races. As for non-Blacks, inter-group
conflict theory suggests that greater contact yields greater conflict between the groups while inter-group
contact theory suggests exactly the reverse. We investigate this question empirically. We find that exogenous increases in segregation lead to decreases in Black civic efficacy, as measured by an ability to elect Representatives who vote liberally and more specifically in favor of legislation that is favored by Blacks. This tendency for Representatives from more segregated MSAs to vote more conservatively arises in spite of the fact that Blacks in more segregated areas hold more liberal political views than do Blacks in less segregated locales. We find evidence that this decrease in efficacy is driven by more conservative attitudes amongst non-Blacks in more segregated areas.
This study employs a broad, "Northian" framework of institutional analysis to investigate the effects of institutions of different national jurisdictions on the structuring of transborder outflows of ...Japanese industrial capital in the 1970s and 1980s and Chinese industrial capital in the 2000s and 2010s. While general theories, such as the stage theory of industrial development, can explain the growth of national industrial capital in the source country, this study focuses on the effects of institutions on the surge and the regional and sectoral destinations of Japanese and Chinese industrial capital outflows. These institutions are laws, policies and guidelines of the state; rules and normal practices in corporate organization and financing, and mechanisms of state-industry relations in the source country; laws, regulations, policy and practices of the host country in regulating and managing inflow foreign industrial capital; and intergovernmental arrangements for transborder industrial capital flow and operation. The study finds these three sets of institutions formed an effective transborder institutional environment that influenced national industrial capital to invest in certain countries and industrial sectors. The distinct institutional forms of organizing transborder industrial production in Japan's case then and China's case now are different from the multilateral institutional approach that dominated East Asia from the 1990s.
We examine a large set of economic, sociopolitical, and institutional variables in a panel of 57 developed and developing countries over the period of 1970–1990 to derive robust conclusions about ...which variables are important in explaining cross-country differences in public sector deficits. Financial depth, income inequality, assassinations, cabinet size, and centralization of authority in budgetary decisions are found to be significant and robust determinants of public deficits. We also propose a working hypothesis and provide supporting econometric evidence: social polarization is important in explaining differences in fiscal outcomes across countries, yet its effects may be even more pronounced or suppressed, depending on the political and institutional structures through which social polarization is linked to the fiscal policy-making process. Indeed, effects on public deficits of the sociopolitical variables tend to be smaller in countries with better institutional arrangements. Conversely, the sociopolitical polarization has very strong effects on deficits in the presence of poor institutions. The results are confirmed by extensive robustness tests such as the sensitivity analysis and the robust estimation method.
This paper explores whether natural resource abundance leads to slower growth rates. We distinguish between natural resource dependence (RD) and natural resource endowment (RE). We estimate two ...models, using World Bank data on national capital stocks. In a one-equation model we show that RD has a negative effect on growth rates, apparently confirming the main results of the resource "curse" literature. RE, however, has a positive impact on growth. We then estimate a three-equation recursive model, introducing endogenous human capital and allowing for endogeneity also in resource dependence. Here the effects of natural resources on growth are not significant.
Oil prices and the terms of trade Backus, David K.; Crucini, Mario J.
Journal of international economics,
02/2000, Letnik:
50, Številka:
1
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The combination of substantial terms of trade variability and unstable correlation patterns of trade prices with output and trade volumes has led some to suggest a break in the link between trade ...volumes and prices. We find that oil accounts for much of the variation in the terms of trade over the last twenty five years and its quantitative role varies significantly over time. And since our dynamic general equilibrium model predicts that the economy responds differently to oil supply shocks than to other shocks, changes in their relative importance helps to account for the unstable correlations in the data.
Disbursements of foreign aid are guided (in part) by the needs of the poor. Anticipating this, recipients have little incentive to improve the welfare of the poor. In principle, conditionality could ...partly solve the problem, but this requires a strong commitment ability by the donor. Without such a commitment technology, aid will be allocated (partly) to those in most need, and the recipient governments will exert low effort in alleviating poverty. Contrary to conventional wisdom in the aid literature, we show that tied project aid and delegation of part of the aid budget to an (international) agency with less aversion to poverty improve welfare of the poor in the recipient countries.
"This paper studies the long-term effects of the business cycle on workers' future promotions and wages. Using the Swedish employer-employee matched data, we find that a cohort of workers entering ...the labor market during a boom gets promoted faster and reaches higher ranks. This procyclical promotion cohort effect persists even after controlling for workers' initial jobs, and explains at least half of the wage cohort effects that previous studies have focused on. We repeat the same analyses using personnel records from a single U.S. company, and obtain the same qualitative results." Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Sekundäranalyse; Querschnitt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1972 bis 1989. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).
Inequality and Growth Bénabou, Roland
NBER macroeconomics annual,
01/1996, Letnik:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Using two unifying models and an empirical exercise, this paper presents and extends the main theories linking income distribution and growth, as well as the relevant empirical evidence. The first ...model integrates the political-economy and imperfect-capital-market theories. It allows for explicit departures from perfect democracy and embodies the tradeoff between the growth costs and benefits of redistribution through taxes, land reform, or public schooling: such policies simultaneously depress saving incentives and ameliorate the wealth constraints which impede investment by the poor. The second model is a growth version of the prisoner's dilemma which captures the essence of theories where sociopolitical conflict reduces the security of property rights, thereby discouraging accumulation. The economy's growth rate is shown to be a decreasing function of interest groups' rent-seeking abilities, as well as of the gap between rich and poor. It is not income inequality per se that matters, however, but inequality in the relative distribution of earning and political power. For each of the three channels of political economy, capital markets, and social conflict, the empirical evidence is surveyed and discussed in conjunction with the theoretical analysis. Finally, the possibility of multiple steady states leads the author to raise and take up a new empirical issue: are cross-country differences in inequality permanent, or gradually narrowing? Equivalently, is there convergence not only in first moments (GDP per capita), but in distribution?
Home bias and high turnover Tesar, Linda L.; Werner, Ingrid M.
Journal of international money and finance,
08/1995, Letnik:
14, Številka:
4
Journal Article
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This paper documents the available evidence on international portfolio investment in five OECD countries. We draw three conclusions from the data. First, there is strong evidence of a home bias in ...national investment portfolios despite the potential gains from international diversification. Second, the composition of the portfolio of foreign securities seems to reflect factors other than diversification of risk. Third, the high volume of cross-border capital flows and the high turnover rate on foreign equity investments relative to turnover on domestic equity markets suggests that variable transactions costs are an unlikely explanation for home bias.
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