Kyklos最新文献

Despite recognition of the importance of women's political rights for the functioning of modern states, women's participation in political debate and decision-making remains low around the world. As the first study of its kind, this article examines the impact of women's political empowerment on military spending. Using a sample of 163 developed and developing countries, the article shows that women's political empowerment helps to reduce military spending. Moreover, this result remains robust when dealing with the level of development, endogeneity issues and geographical location. As an explanation, we highlight the role of women politically engaged in improving governance through the reduction of corruption, peacebuilding, their preference for social spending like education and health and their role in reduction discrimination against women.

This paper examines the impact of ultraviolet radiation (UV-R) on state capacity. The results indicate that the intensity of UV-R is a strong predictor of cross-country differences in state capacity. Countries with a higher degree of UV-R exposure tend on average to have weaker states. This finding remains unaffected after controlling for different variables that may be correlated with both UV-R and state capacity, including an extensive set of geographical, historical and contemporary factors. The observed link between sunlight and state capacity is not driven by potential outliers and is robust to the employment of alternative measures of state capacity, estimation methods and other sensitivity checks. Furthermore, the analysis also reveals that the individualistic–collectivist dimension of culture acts as a transmission channel connecting UV-R and state capacity. The estimates show that a lower degree of UV-R exposure leads to the adoption of individualistic values, which in turn contribute to the development of state capacity.

Substantial tariff reductions and increased usage of non-tariff measures (NTMs) have been key dynamics of global trade policy in recent decades. We use highly disaggregated data on applied most favored nation tariffs, NTMs, and trade to investigate how International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality as a form of external pressure to reduce tariffs contributed to this dynamic in developing countries. Our results show that structural adjustment programs (SAPs) effectively lowered tariffs without increasing the usage of NTMs. A typical three-year program containing tariff conditionality decreased tariff rates in the range of 2.0 to 3.8 percentage points in total. Furthermore, IMF programs reduced NTM initializations significantly. We also show that tariff conditionality was more effective in initiating tariff cuts for countries without previous greater globalization efforts than being a “catalyst” for ongoing liberalization efforts.

Economics is beautiful, and all undergraduates who love and revere beauty should major in this dismal science. Beauty is defined, for present purposes as cooperation, coordination, teamwork, togetherness, inclusiveness, and assists in sports. The greater the number of people participating in the “team,” the more gorgeous is the cooperation. The less central direction, whether implicit or explicit, other things equal, the greater is the loveliness of the coordination. The economy, that which economists study, beats all the competition, as, at least ideally, it encompasses the most people on the “team” (all of us!) with the least outside direction. Well, none at all, given full free enterprise with no central planning whatsoever. That, at least, would be the extreme degree of economic freedom.

Tackling the root causes of migration from developing countries through development cooperation has been suggested as an essential part of the policy mix in OECD migrant destinations. This is even though the evidence on whether economic development leads to more or less people emigrating is so far inconclusive. We investigate the relationship between income per capita and emigration to OECD countries separately for three different skill groups—low-skilled, medium-skilled and high-skilled emigrants—being the first to employ panel regression approaches that account for cross-country heterogeneity and cover a policy-relevant time frame of about 5 years. Our findings reveal a universal negative association between income per capita and emigration for all three skill groups and for different income thresholds. This implies that policy makers should not be too concerned about potential trade-offs between (successful) development cooperation and immigration management, at least in the short to medium run that our analysis covers. At the same time, the scope for using development cooperation as a migration policy instrument can be considered to be limited given the modest size of the estimated income effect: Taking our point estimates at face value, a 10% rise in GDP per capita would on average lead to about 3600 fewer immigrants per destination.

Social media stars gain star-status with uploads on social media pages like YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. One of the most popular platforms is “Instagram” owned by Meta/Facebook. The growing social, cultural, and economic power of so-called influencers raises questions about key drivers of success and, moreover, distribution of income on social media platforms. Instagram has been accused of strategically favoring images with nude content. In order to shed light on this socio-critical aspect, this paper examines the following research questions: Does body exposure drive income success on Instagram? Is there a difference between male and female content in this regard? This paper empirically analyzes 500 top Instagram stars within the categories (1) fashion and beauty, (2) fitness and sports, (3) music, (4) photo and arts, and (5) food and vegan. The data provide information on popularity, posting behavior, and price estimates per post. Using hybrid regression models, the results show indeed positive impact of body exposure on monetary success. Accounts with high level of body exposure achieve higher prices and advertising revenues than accounts with less nudity, regardless of the gender. Regarding gender differences, male content achieves on average higher advertising prices, whereas female accounts provide more branded content and eventually achieve higher advertising revenues.

This study revisited the impact of fiscal decentralization on China's economic growth, focusing on the role of the revenue-sharing system in providing local fiscal incentives. Using city-level data from 2003 to 2016, we construct the revenue retention rate at the sub-provincial level to test the impacts of fiscal incentives on economic growth. The results show that the sub-provincial revenue retention rate is significantly and positively associated with the local economic growth rate. Further, we find that a higher revenue retention rate encourages sub-provincial governments to spend more on infrastructure, borrow more debt, distort land price, and relax environmental regulatory standards. Our findings indicate that the positive economic effect of fiscal decentralization is accompanied by a social cost and increased financial risk.

How does government recentralization reform affect corruption? We utilize the pilot recentralization reform that transforms the legislative function, power, and responsibility of the district-level authorities to the higher level of the government organ in Vietnam as a quasi-natural experiment to address the aforementioned question. We find strong evidence that recentralization reform leads to lower corruption. The result illustrates that, among the firms which have the highest probability of making a bribe payment, those incorporated in jurisdictions experiencing the recentralization reform are 4.3% less likely to pay a bribe. In addition, the perception that bribery is a common and necessary practice is also significantly lowered in the post-recentralization period. We further show that the impact of recentralization is stronger for firms which lack a political connection. Overall, these results shed light on the real impact of the government recentralization reform and also the determinants of corruption, thereby providing important policy implications for policymakers to create a more conducive business environment.

We leverage theoretical insights from political economy to study several aspects of the institutional development of the Italian city-states during the High Middle Ages (1000–1350). A society's regime type depends on its domestic balance of power. When the ruled can credibly threaten to punish a rogue ruler, the rule of law prevails. If the ruler can easily overpower the ruled, despotism results instead. The transition from one regime to the other results when exogenous shocks and endogenous dynamics disturb the prevailing balance of power. This framework accounts for the rise and eventual decline of rule of law regimes in the towns of central and northern Italy between the 10th and 14th centuries.

The paper analyzes the role of the 1948 currency and economic reform in West Germany for growth and social cohesion in Germany and Europe. It describes the theoretical foundation by Walter Eucken and the implementation and defense of the new economic order by Ludwig Erhard. The paper stresses the positive impact of the market economy on growth and welfare in Germany and Europe. Then, it is shown that Eucken's constituting principles of the market economy were gradually eroded after euro introduction in course of crises, with the negative repercussions on growth and equality being explained. The policy conclusion is that only the reconstitution of price stability in the euro area can prevent a further decline of welfare in Europe. The 1948 economic reforms provide an important blueprint for the necessary reform process.