Journal of Comparative Economics最新文献

Voluminous theoretical and empirical research shows that real exchange rate (RER) undervaluation could be conducive to economic development. Why do countries then often avoid the pursuit of policies that facilitate undervaluation or even intentionally pursue RER overvaluation? We address this question by investigating economic, institutional, and policy factors that help explain the within-country variation in RER undervaluation in a baseline panel of 68 developing and 39 developed countries between 1989–2013 using OLS and GMM estimators. Our results indicate that increases in the share of non-tradable sector output, imported input intensity of exports, and capital account openness is systematically associated with less undervalued RERs. We also provide evidence that independent central banks and democratic institutions are linked to RER overvaluation. Our key findings are robust to using alternative specifications, measures, estimation techniques, samples, and additional control variables. A preliminary comparison of Latin America and East Asia suggests interesting support for our key findings.

We study the impact of the Italian Civil War and Nazi occupation of Italy in 1943–45 on postwar political outcomes. The Communist Party, which was more active in the resistance movement, gained votes in areas where the Nazi occupation was both longer and harsher, mainly at the expense of centrist parties. This effect persists until the late 1980s. These results suggest that civil war and widespread political violence reshape political identities in favor of the political groups that emerge as winners. This benefits extremist groups and hurts moderates since the former have a comparative advantage in organizing violent conflict.

We create a novel data set on the European river network and for the ruggedness of trade routes between European countries and integrate these new indicators into recently developed structural gravity models. Moreover, we propose a new approach how to differentiate between contemporaneous and historical trade costs. Applying two-stage structural gravity estimations, we assess the impact of topography on trade by combining worldwide, European, and domestic trade data. While border effect estimates remain largely robust, a main part of the historical and contemporaneous trade costs usually attributed to non-contiguity can be accounted for by topography. Finally, counterfactual simulations suggest that positive effects of rivers on trade are less important than negative effects of mountains.

This paper analyzes the implications of demilitarization on economic growth. I create a new data set of military transitions since 1960 and measure the effect of demilitarization in countries that reduced their military capabilities and subsided aggressive or violent behavior. Semiparametric difference-in-difference estimates predict that on average, demilitarization is associated with a 1% higher annual GDP per capita than if the country had remained militarized. Dynamic analysis shows that on average, GDP per capita is 15%–20% higher 20 years after transition. These findings provide empirical evidence in support of a Peace Dividend.

This study focuses on the impact of municipal government officials’ vacancies on the economic development of their cities. Using manually collected data on unfilled senior governmental positions measured by the absence of municipal party secretaries in China from 2003 to 2019, we find that these absences limit city economic development. We identify two possible channels through which this happens: government efficiency and economic policy uncertainty. Finally, we show that the impact of these vacancies on city economic development is stronger in cities in which there is greater pressure to promote government officials and in less developed cities. Thus, this study offers new evidence that vacancies in city government undermine that city's economic development, particularly in a country undergoing an economic transition.

Recent trends of global sourcing, market concentration, and aggregate markup have garnered increased attention. This paper examines the impact of global sourcing of inputs on market structure and markup changes in the United States. We develop a theoretical model with heterogeneous firms that suggests only the most-productivity firms will self-select to source inputs overseas, resulting in an increase in the markups and market shares of these leading firms, while lower-productivity firms are crowded out. Based on the theoretical analysis, aggregate markup rises due to both the within-firm markup adjustments and market share concentration among leading firms. We then provide empirical evidence supporting our theoretical predictions, analyzing the effect of imported inputs on markup adjustments, market shares, and industrial markups in the United States over the past four decades. Our results highlight the importance of firms’ self-selection effect in the global sourcing market and its impact on market outcomes. Failing to account for this influencing channel could lead to an underestimation of the contribution of input globalization to the rise of markup and other market consequences.

Indian communities in Latin America, like in the Middle East and other regions of the world, tend to have rules of equal inheritance. Yet, migration can transform ex ante egalitarian rules into unequal ex post practices. In this paper, based on evidence collected at both sides of the migration link in Bolivia, we find that the unequalization process caused by migration tends to paradoxically harm poor migrants from egalitarian communities who are driven to voluntarily forfeit their inheritance. To resolve the puzzle, we propose a novel theory placed in the framework of strategic exchange but where the migration decision is endogenized: upon migration, children take into account the prospect of potentially losing access to family land if they are unable to fulfill their care obligations. Voluntary exclusion from inheritance is especially likely if the value of rural public goods is low, farm output per capita is small, and the wages in the urban modern sector are high compared to those in the informal sector. The main policy implication is the following: a more equal pattern of economic growth, along both the rural–urban and the intersectoral intra-urban dimensions, helps minimize the disruption of rural families and communities, which play an important social insurance function.

While little evidence sheds light on the positive role of arms, it is still arguably possible for arms imports to reduce conflicts. In this study, we examine whether and how arms imports from the US affect internal conflicts in 135 non-OECD countries. Leveraging a two-way interacted instrumental variable, we exploit a time-series variation of arms supply that arises from the political component of the US Congress and a cross-country variation of arms demand measured as the propensity of purchasing arms. Our analysis reveals that importing US arms exerts a significantly negative impact on the incidence of civil war, particularly in recipients with extreme climate conditions, scarce natural resources, or less diversified socio-demographic structures. We further provide explanations for such a positive role of arms imports by examining the existence of a deterrent effect, the enhancement of public confidence, and the strengthening of state capacity.

I find substantial differences in the extent of misallocation across male and female-led establishments spanning many low and middle-income countries. Across broad geographic regions, female establishments face higher distortions to operating a business which are primarily due to higher capital distortions. Equalizing distortions across gender increases female sales shares and can imply proportionally large increases in TFP attributed to women. Regression estimates show that higher female distortions are negatively associated with economic development.