This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens’ happiness.
{"title":"Happiness and the Quality of Government","authors":"J. Helliwell, Haifang Huang, Shun Wang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3710415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3710415","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens’ happiness.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130013501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Socialism is back on the political agenda in the United States. Politicians and some economists who identify as socialists, however, do not discuss property relations, a topic that was central in the intellectual history of socialism, but rather limit themselves to advocacy of economic reforms, funded through taxation, that would tilt the income distribution in favor of the disadvantaged in society. In the absence of a more precise discussion of property relations, the presumption must be that ownership of firms would remain private or corporate with privately owned shares. This formula is identified with the Nordic and other western European social democracies. In this article, I propose several variants of socialism, which are characterized by different kinds of property relation in the ownership of society's firms. In addition to varying property relations, I include as part of socialism a conception of what it means for a socialist society to possess a cooperative ethos, in place of the individualistic ethos of capitalist society. Differences in ethea are modeled as differences in the manner in which economic agents optimize. With an individualistic ethos, economic agents optimize in the manner of John Nash, while under a cooperative ethos, many optimize in the manner of Immanuel Kant. It is shown that Kantian optimization can decentralize resource allocation in ways that neatly separate issues of income distribution from those of efficiency. In particular, remuneration of labor and capital contributions to production need no longer be linked to marginal-product pricing of these factors, as is the key to efficiency with capitalist property relations. I present simulations of socialist income distributions, and offer some tentative conclusions concerning how we should conceive of socialism today.
{"title":"What Is Socialism Today? Conceptions of a Cooperative Economy","authors":"J. Roemer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3524617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3524617","url":null,"abstract":"Socialism is back on the political agenda in the United States. Politicians and some economists who identify as socialists, however, do not discuss property relations, a topic that was central in the intellectual history of socialism, but rather limit themselves to advocacy of economic reforms, funded through taxation, that would tilt the income distribution in favor of the disadvantaged in society. In the absence of a more precise discussion of property relations, the presumption must be that ownership of firms would remain private or corporate with privately owned shares. This formula is identified with the Nordic and other western European social democracies. In this article, I propose several variants of socialism, which are characterized by different kinds of property relation in the ownership of society's firms. In addition to varying property relations, I include as part of socialism a conception of what it means for a socialist society to possess a cooperative ethos, in place of the individualistic ethos of capitalist society. Differences in ethea are modeled as differences in the manner in which economic agents optimize. With an individualistic ethos, economic agents optimize in the manner of John Nash, while under a cooperative ethos, many optimize in the manner of Immanuel Kant. It is shown that Kantian optimization can decentralize resource allocation in ways that neatly separate issues of income distribution from those of efficiency. In particular, remuneration of labor and capital contributions to production need no longer be linked to marginal-product pricing of these factors, as is the key to efficiency with capitalist property relations. I present simulations of socialist income distributions, and offer some tentative conclusions concerning how we should conceive of socialism today.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"230 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128480441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the difference between a global temperature rise of 1.5°C and 2°C is clear in its conclusions: every half a degree counts. Capping temperature rises at 1.5°C would significantly limit our exposure to extreme weather, droughts and rising water levels, but would require ‘rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities’. As the 2018 Nobel prize winner William D Nordhaus concludes, however, the reality is that ‘most countries are on a business-as-usual (BAU) trajectory of minimal policies to reduce their emissions, taking non-cooperative policies that are in their national interest, but far from ones which would represent a global cooperative policy’.
最近政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)关于全球气温上升1.5°C和2°C之间的差异的报告在其结论中很明确:每半度都很重要。将气温上升控制在1.5摄氏度将大大限制我们对极端天气、干旱和水位上升的影响，但这需要“土地、能源、工业、建筑、交通和城市迅速而深远的转变”。然而，正如2018年诺贝尔奖得主威廉·D·诺德豪斯(William D . Nordhaus)所总结的那样，现实情况是“大多数国家都在采取一切照原(BAU)的方式，采取最低限度的减排政策，采取符合其国家利益的非合作政策，但远非代表全球合作政策”。
{"title":"Of the People, by the People, for the People? The European Union’s Experience with Private Environmental Regulation and Enforcement","authors":"S. Kingston, Edwin Alblas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3502800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3502800","url":null,"abstract":"The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the difference between a global temperature rise of 1.5°C and 2°C is clear in its conclusions: every half a degree counts. Capping temperature rises at 1.5°C would significantly limit our exposure to extreme weather, droughts and rising water levels, but would require ‘rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities’. \u0000 \u0000As the 2018 Nobel prize winner William D Nordhaus concludes, however, the reality is that ‘most countries are on a business-as-usual (BAU) trajectory of minimal policies to reduce their emissions, taking non-cooperative policies that are in their national interest, but far from ones which would represent a global cooperative policy’.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117145200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Newman, T. Mitchell, Marcus Holmlund, Chloë Fernandez
How to effectively maintain communal spaces is an important concern in many developing countries, particularly in urban environments. But what strategies can communities use to overcome the public goods problems involved in maintaining their local environment? In this paper, we investigate whether changing the incentives for a subset of the community to contribute to the public good can lead to a shift to a more efficient equilibrium for the community as a whole. We use a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a program called “Operation Clean Neighborhood”, which targets established Community Based Organizations and encourages them, through social recognition and low-value in-kind incentives, to work towards keeping their neighborhoods clean, with the ultimate goal of also reducing flooding in these areas. After one year, we find that our intervention is effective in engaging communities and in improving the cleanliness of the neighborhood and also find evidence that this leads to reduced levels of flooding. We uncover important differences in the effectiveness of the program between areas which have had increased investment in drainage infrastructure and those which have not. In our analysis we also address the issue of spillovers, an important consideration in densely populated urban centers.
{"title":"Group Incentives for the Public Good: A Field Experiment on Improving the Urban Environment","authors":"C. Newman, T. Mitchell, Marcus Holmlund, Chloë Fernandez","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-9087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-9087","url":null,"abstract":"How to effectively maintain communal spaces is an important concern in many developing countries, particularly in urban environments. But what strategies can communities use to overcome the public goods problems involved in maintaining their local environment? In this paper, we investigate whether changing the incentives for a subset of the community to contribute to the public good can lead to a shift to a more efficient equilibrium for the community as a whole. We use a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a program called “Operation Clean Neighborhood”, which targets established Community Based Organizations and encourages them, through social recognition and low-value in-kind incentives, to work towards keeping their neighborhoods clean, with the ultimate goal of also reducing flooding in these areas. After one year, we find that our intervention is effective in engaging communities and in improving the cleanliness of the neighborhood and also find evidence that this leads to reduced levels of flooding. We uncover important differences in the effectiveness of the program between areas which have had increased investment in drainage infrastructure and those which have not. In our analysis we also address the issue of spillovers, an important consideration in densely populated urban centers.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124622219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Can individuals' aversion to drug markets curb the benefits of decriminalization? We investigate the effect of two policies on housing demand in the Netherlands: the distance-to-school criterion, which closed some cannabis shops in a few cities; and the zero-tolerance policy, which banned shops within municipal jurisdictions. While a small increase in the distance to retailers raised house prices by 1-5%, a substantial increase reduced them by 1-6%. Both policies reduced property crime, but the zero-tolerance was also related to fewer jobs. Our findings reveal that cities benefit from having cannabis shops, but households' aversion to related nuisances depreciates surrounding areas.
{"title":"'No Drugs in My Back Yard:' the Ambivalent Reception of Cannabis Retailers","authors":"L. M. Bruijn, Rafael P. Ribas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3461820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3461820","url":null,"abstract":"Can individuals' aversion to drug markets curb the benefits of decriminalization? We investigate the effect of two policies on housing demand in the Netherlands: the distance-to-school criterion, which closed some cannabis shops in a few cities; and the zero-tolerance policy, which banned shops within municipal jurisdictions. While a small increase in the distance to retailers raised house prices by 1-5%, a substantial increase reduced them by 1-6%. Both policies reduced property crime, but the zero-tolerance was also related to fewer jobs. Our findings reveal that cities benefit from having cannabis shops, but households' aversion to related nuisances depreciates surrounding areas.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126647402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Moritz A. Drupp, Stefan Baumgärtner, Moritz Meyer, M. Quaas, H. von Wehrden
We survey the emerging research area of sustainability economics through a quantitative full-text analysis of peer-reviewed journal publications from 1987 to 2013. To identify relevant contributions, we draw on existing definitions of sustainability economics for a keyword-based identification strategy: a combined focus on (a) the human-nature relationship, (b) the long-term uncertain future, (c) normative orientation towards sustainability, and (d) economic analysis. Our analysis of a random subsample of 343 relevant papers reveals that (i) sustainability economics is a rapidly developing research area; (ii) while theoretical contributions shaped the area in earlier years, applied work now constitutes the largest share of contributions; (iii) the research landscape can be clustered into eleven research clusters. These range from participatory governance of social-ecological systems associated with the work of Elinor Ostrom to questions of intertemporal allocation and distribution applied to climate economics associated with the work of William Nordhaus; (iv) the research area is broad in scope and heterogeneous, and there is relatively little interaction between important clusters; (v) relevant contributions are published in more than 100 journals. Ten journals publish half of all contributions, led by Ecological Economics, and 40% appear in non-economics journals, underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue.
{"title":"Between Ostrom and Nordhaus: The Research Landscape of Sustainability Economics","authors":"Moritz A. Drupp, Stefan Baumgärtner, Moritz Meyer, M. Quaas, H. von Wehrden","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3503315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3503315","url":null,"abstract":"We survey the emerging research area of sustainability economics through a quantitative full-text analysis of peer-reviewed journal publications from 1987 to 2013. To identify relevant contributions, we draw on existing definitions of sustainability economics for a keyword-based identification strategy: a combined focus on (a) the human-nature relationship, (b) the long-term uncertain future, (c) normative orientation towards sustainability, and (d) economic analysis. Our analysis of a random subsample of 343 relevant papers reveals that (i) sustainability economics is a rapidly developing research area; (ii) while theoretical contributions shaped the area in earlier years, applied work now constitutes the largest share of contributions; (iii) the research landscape can be clustered into eleven research clusters. These range from participatory governance of social-ecological systems associated with the work of Elinor Ostrom to questions of intertemporal allocation and distribution applied to climate economics associated with the work of William Nordhaus; (iv) the research area is broad in scope and heterogeneous, and there is relatively little interaction between important clusters; (v) relevant contributions are published in more than 100 journals. Ten journals publish half of all contributions, led by Ecological Economics, and 40% appear in non-economics journals, underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129803595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pilar García-Gómez, Helena M Hernández-Pizarro, G. López Casasnovas, J. Vidiella-Martin
We investigate whether publicly subsidized long-term care (LTC) is allocated according to needs, independently from income, using administrative data from all applicants for public LTC in Catalonia, from 2011 to 2014. We measure the level of horizontal inequity in subsidies to compensate informal care costs, formal home care, and institutional care using objective detailed information on needs. Our findings suggest that the system is inequitable; cash transfers are distributed among the financially better-off, while the use of nursing homes is concentrated among the worse-off. Additionally, we assess the inequity in the form of provision (voucher versus in- kind) and its implications for the equity in the time to access. Our results show that while in-kind provision is concentrated among the worse-off, the better-off are more likely to receive a voucher to (partly) subsidize LTC expenses. However, this duality does not imply inequity in the time to access a nursing home.
{"title":"Unravelling Hidden Inequities in a Universal Public Long-Term Care System","authors":"Pilar García-Gómez, Helena M Hernández-Pizarro, G. López Casasnovas, J. Vidiella-Martin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3329198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3329198","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate whether publicly subsidized long-term care (LTC) is allocated according to needs, independently from income, using administrative data from all applicants for public LTC in Catalonia, from 2011 to 2014. We measure the level of horizontal inequity in subsidies to compensate informal care costs, formal home care, and institutional care using objective detailed information on needs. Our findings suggest that the system is inequitable; cash transfers are distributed among the financially better-off, while the use of nursing homes is concentrated among the worse-off. Additionally, we assess the inequity in the form of provision (voucher versus in- kind) and its implications for the equity in the time to access. Our results show that while in-kind provision is concentrated among the worse-off, the better-off are more likely to receive a voucher to (partly) subsidize LTC expenses. However, this duality does not imply inequity in the time to access a nursing home.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132083075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is almost self-evident that capital markets can thrive only in a benign macroeconomic environment. What is often overlooked is that malign macro factors such as inflation and government debt, provided that they are kept under control, can have their bright sides. Previous studies typically presume that the impact of inflation or government debt on capital market development is monotonic, thus precluding the possibility that these factors could be beneficial within a certain limit or threshold. In this study, we take into account this possibility. Our study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between inflation and the size of the stock market. Hence, inflation within a certain limit may act as a lubricant to the market and help lower the cost of capital in real terms. However, when inflation is too high, long-term investment decisions would be difficult, which is detrimental to stock market growth. An inverted U-shaped relationship is also found between the size of the government bond market and that of the corporate bond market. This suggests that public debt under a certain threshold can benefit corporate bond market development, supporting the notion that the sovereign yield curve plays an important role in pricing private sector debt securities. However, excessive public debt would stifle it.
{"title":"The Limit of Evil: Effects of Inflation and Public Debt on Capital Market Development","authors":"David Leung, Wenzhe Li, A. Wong, Jiayue Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3330936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3330936","url":null,"abstract":"It is almost self-evident that capital markets can thrive only in a benign macroeconomic environment. What is often overlooked is that malign macro factors such as inflation and government debt, provided that they are kept under control, can have their bright sides. Previous studies typically presume that the impact of inflation or government debt on capital market development is monotonic, thus precluding the possibility that these factors could be beneficial within a certain limit or threshold. In this study, we take into account this possibility. Our study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between inflation and the size of the stock market. Hence, inflation within a certain limit may act as a lubricant to the market and help lower the cost of capital in real terms. However, when inflation is too high, long-term investment decisions would be difficult, which is detrimental to stock market growth. An inverted U-shaped relationship is also found between the size of the government bond market and that of the corporate bond market. This suggests that public debt under a certain threshold can benefit corporate bond market development, supporting the notion that the sovereign yield curve plays an important role in pricing private sector debt securities. However, excessive public debt would stifle it.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128273466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent decades have seen a dramatic expansion in higher education. Americans are accessing higher education at growing rates, at the undergraduate level and beyond. While this process is widely celebrated, this Article argues that the proliferation of higher education has, also, a dark side. Through a myriad of empirical evidence, we show that American higher education is plagued by an 'arms race'. Individuals acquire more education than is needed for performing their job or for personal growth, in order to gain an edge in a competitive job market. As people gain more education, employers become more selective, further fueling the educational arms-race. The Article argues that this arms-race is both socially wasteful and unjust. It is wasteful because enormous resources are invested by individuals and the public on higher education, without increasing work productivity or contributing to economic growth. It is unjust because it benefits those who can afford to study, while others are either forced to incur huge debt to fund education, or are left with low- paying menial jobs. The article then discusses several legal solutions aimed at mitigating the educational arms-race. The suggestions are designed to target only cases in which the expansion in higher education is indeed inefficient and unjust, rather than to restrict higher education generally. The first suggestion involves “banning the higher education box�?, namely considering higher education requirements discriminatory when they are unjustified by a business necessity and cause racial disparity. Second, we offer imposing a “Signaling Fee�? on employers upon hiring overeducated workers; and third we propose encouraging practices of lifelong learning and on-the-job-training. Adopting these (and perhaps other) measures is crucial for reversing the educational arms race and safeguarding higher education as the socially beneficial institution it should be.
{"title":"Higher Education: Too Much of a (Potentially) Good Thing?","authors":"Omer Kimhi, Tammy Harel Ben-Shahar","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3313535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3313535","url":null,"abstract":"Recent decades have seen a dramatic expansion in higher education. Americans are accessing higher education at growing rates, at the undergraduate level and beyond. While this process is widely celebrated, this Article argues that the proliferation of higher education has, also, a dark side. Through a myriad of empirical evidence, we show that American higher education is plagued by an 'arms race'. Individuals acquire more education than is needed for performing their job or for personal growth, in order to gain an edge in a competitive job market. As people gain more education, employers become more selective, further fueling the educational arms-race. The Article argues that this arms-race is both socially wasteful and unjust. It is wasteful because enormous resources are invested by individuals and the public on higher education, without increasing work productivity or contributing to economic growth. It is unjust because it benefits those who can afford to study, while others are either forced to incur huge debt to fund education, or are left with low- paying menial jobs. The article then discusses several legal solutions aimed at mitigating the educational arms-race. The suggestions are designed to target only cases in which the expansion in higher education is indeed inefficient and unjust, rather than to restrict higher education generally. The first suggestion involves “banning the higher education box�?, namely considering higher education requirements discriminatory when they are unjustified by a business necessity and cause racial disparity. Second, we offer imposing a “Signaling Fee�? on employers upon hiring overeducated workers; and third we propose encouraging practices of lifelong learning and on-the-job-training. Adopting these (and perhaps other) measures is crucial for reversing the educational arms race and safeguarding higher education as the socially beneficial institution it should be.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116369042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Whether the longer tenure of political agents leads to better public policies is a central question in political economy. Tenure security extends the time horizons of dictators, which may explain economic growth under extractive institutions. This study estimates the causal impact of longer time horizons of local dictators using sub-national data from 17th-century Japan. Local lords at that time faced the risk of transferring their domains by order of the central government. In 1651, the death of the executive leader of the central government caused a policy reform, and it disproportionally reduced the transfer risk faced by particular local lords (insiders) for plausibly exogenous reasons. By digitizing the historical dataset and using the difference-in-differences method, I find relatively greater agricultural investment in insiders' domains after 1651. Supplemental analyses indicate that this effect is driven by the longer time horizon channel rather than the career concern or local experience channel.
{"title":"Time Horizon of Government and Public Goods Investment: Evidence From Japan","authors":"J. Yamasaki","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3147815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3147815","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Whether the longer tenure of political agents leads to better public policies is a central question in political economy. Tenure security extends the time horizons of dictators, which may explain economic growth under extractive institutions. This study estimates the causal impact of longer time horizons of local dictators using sub-national data from 17th-century Japan. Local lords at that time faced the risk of transferring their domains by order of the central government. In 1651, the death of the executive leader of the central government caused a policy reform, and it disproportionally reduced the transfer risk faced by particular local lords (insiders) for plausibly exogenous reasons. By digitizing the historical dataset and using the difference-in-differences method, I find relatively greater agricultural investment in insiders' domains after 1651. Supplemental analyses indicate that this effect is driven by the longer time horizon channel rather than the career concern or local experience channel.","PeriodicalId":113748,"journal":{"name":"Public Economics: Publicly Provided Goods eJournal","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129005991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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