Economics of Transition and Institutional Change最新文献

Does coethnicity with the President affect public infrastructure provision in South Africa? Using municipal-level data for 52 district municipalities from 1996 to 2016, we find that municipalities coethnic with the President are associated with higher water infrastructure provision relative to non-coethnic municipalities. Taking into account various political considerations, results show that ethnic favouritism occurs due to ethnic altruism. Our findings remain robust to different specifications of coethnicity thresholds and are applicable to electricity infrastructure provision. Results suggest that in order to minimise ethnic favouritism, politically independent institutions should oversee the allocation of funding and provision of infrastructure.

This study evaluates the effect of a compulsory military service reform conducted in 2007–2008 on the demand for higher education in Russia. The reform shortened the conscription term (from two years to one year), abolished several deferments, and significantly reduced the number of military departments in Russian universities, which provided an opportunity to avoid being conscripted as a private. The difference between the Russian reform and the armed forces reforms carried out in several European countries in the 1990s–2000s lies in the fact that compulsory military service was not abolished completely. Based on data compiled from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we find that the men affected by the reform are, in general, approximately 12% less likely to graduate from higher education. The effect is more pronounced for men from cities and more advantaged family backgrounds. Army veterans exhibit steadily lower demand for higher education irrespective the reform.

The Arab Spring (AS) event characterized the recent history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It brought about various economic, political, and social conditions and transformations that affected women's well-being and their status and participation in the labour market. Accordingly, this paper examines the short-run and the long-run effects of the AS on female labour force participation (FLFP) rates in the MENA region. The empirical analysis is implemented through the generalized method of moments (GMM) system estimator for dynamic panel models, using the basic (one-step) and the two-step approaches over different empirical specifications. The benchmark empirical results show that the AS is associated with moderate average increases in FLFP rates in the MENA region. The empirical analysis subsequently emphasizes significant variations and distinct patterns in the AS effects on FLFP rates across MENA countries, and it ties these findings to the AS-related economic, political and social circumstances in these countries.

This study examines whether convergence in institutional quality distinguished by economic and political dimensions of institutions has occurred across countries. The study uses data from 81 countries over the period of 1985 to 2018. The study tests the convergence hypothesis by using three different measures of institutional quality capturing political and economic dimensions of institutions. The empirical results show that convergence in economic institutional quality has occurred and most countries with weak economic institutions have a higher rate of change compared with countries with strong economic institutions. In contrast, for political institutions, the convergence process is short-lived.

After the Doi Moi reforms, Vietnam pursued fiscal decentralization to strengthen the autonomy and governance capacity of local governments. While several empirical studies analysed the impact of fiscal decentralization on the economic growth of Vietnamese provinces, very few studies examined its impact on their social development. This study represents an initial effort to fill this gap. The empirical analysis applied the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to an updated panel data of 63 Vietnamese provinces, spanning the period from 2011 to 2019. The results indicate a positive impact of fiscal decentralization on both economic and social development as well as efficiency of resource utilization for development targets. However, realizing the full potential of fiscal decentralization requires the fulfilment of certain conditions.

We show that contemporary differences in entrepreneurship within China can be traced back to Keju, a civil service examination system for selecting state bureaucracy in the age of monarchy. Combining current individual-level survey data with historical prefecture-level data on the density of Jinshi (the highest qualification in Keju) during the Ming–Qing period, we find that individuals in prefectures with high Jinshi density exhibit a lower probability of participation in entrepreneurial activities today. Evidence from a range of identification methods suggests that the relationship is robust and causal. We also argue that the Keju tradition could influence entrepreneurship through its effect on individuals' propensity to work for the state and risk aversion. Finally, we show that persistence is lower in prefectures with higher political violence during the Cultural Revolution and economic openness presently.

Across Emerging Europe, the transition years of the 1990s were characterized by major economic transformation, but also significant disruption and uneven gains. The path of transition in the Western Balkans has, however, been particularly uneven, and dissatisfaction with living standards is especially stark and persistent there. We aim to contribute to the empirical literature on subjective perceptions of economic well-being by providing insights on which personal characteristics and circumstances are associated with perceptions of relative economic standing and income needs. We find that factors other than spending play a larger role in the Western Balkans than in Central and South-Eastern Europe: in particular, greater (perceived) income uncertainty and more pessimistic expectations about the future weighed on perceived relative economic standing and could account for some of the observed persistent dissatisfaction.

We analyze the macroeconomic consequences of foreign currency losses by banks, corporates and consumers. To that end, we construct a New Keynesian DSGE model with debt overhang for corporate borrowers, monitoring costs for household mortgage debt and leverage constraints for banks. The Hungarian experience at the end of 2008 and model estimation on Hungarian data motivate these particular financial frictions. Model simulation shows that making corporate borrowers bear currency risk results in worse macroeconomic outcomes than currency mismatch losses on bank balance sheets. Foreign currency mortgages to households, however, generate lower output losses than currency mismatch in the banking sector. The fact that households do not suffer from debt overhang contributes to this result.

This paper estimates the role of the usage of the largest social media platform in China, Sina Weibo, by the Chinese government for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Manually collected governmental microblogs about the COVID-19 outbreak were analysed, which showed that a 10 per cent increase in the number of microblogs resulted in a 1.38 per cent decrease of confirmed COVID-19 cases. This effect was more pronounced in areas with less restrained travel restrictions. The effect relies primarily on two mechanisms: encouraging home quarantine and promoting knowledge about COVID-19 prevention.

Argentina is the only country in the world that was developed in 1900 and developing in 2000. Although there is widespread consensus on the occurrence and uniqueness of this decline, an intense debate remains on its timing and underlying causes. This paper provides a first systematic investigation of the timing of the Argentine debacle. It uses an array of econometric tests for structural breaks and a range of GDP growth series covering 1886–2003. The main conclusion is the dating of two key structural breaks (in 1918 and 1948), which we argue support explanations for the debacle that highlight the slowdown of domestic financial development and trade protectionism (after 1918) and of institutional development (after 1948).