Empirical Models of Lobbying

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 391-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilde Bombardini ◽  
Francesco Trebbi
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare Effects ◽  
Empirical Models ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Social Optimum ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Special Interest Politics ◽  
The Impact

This article offers a review of the recent empirical literature on lobbying within political economy. In surveying extant research, we emphasize quid pro quo and informational issues in special interest politics and highlight crucial open questions in both. The two main unresolved methodological issues remain ( a) how to account for the impact of lobbying on which equilibrium policies are chosen and advanced and ( b) how distorted those equilibrium policies are relative to the social optimum. Of the principal open questions within political economy, a comprehensive, quantitative assessment of the welfare effects of lobbying remains one of the most elusive.

scholarly journals The Impact of Immigration: Why Do Studies Reach Such Different Results?

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dustmann ◽  
Uta Schönberg ◽  
Jan Stuhler
Keyword(s):  
Labor Supply ◽  
Empirical Models ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
The Third ◽  
Experience Levels ◽  
Heterogeneous Labor ◽  
Wage Effects ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Biased Estimates

We classify the empirical literature on the wage impact of immigration into three groups, where studies in the first two groups estimate different relative effects, and studies in the third group estimate the total effect of immigration on wages. We interpret the estimates obtained from the different approaches through the lens of the canonical model to demonstrate that they are not comparable. We then relax two key assumptions in this literature, allowing for inelastic and heterogeneous labor supply elasticities of natives and the "downgrading" of immigrants. “Downgrading” occurs when the position of immigrants in the labor market is systematically lower than the position of natives with the same observed education and experience levels. Downgrading means that immigrants receive lower returns to the same measured skills than natives when these skills are acquired in their country of origin. We show that heterogeneous labor supply elasticities, if ignored, may complicate the interpretation of wage estimates, and particularly the interpretation of relative wage effects. Moreover, downgrading may lead to biased estimates in those approaches that estimate relative effects of immigration, but not in approaches that estimate total effects. We conclude that empirical models that estimate total effects not only answer important policy questions, but are also more robust to alternative assumptions than models that estimate relative effects.

scholarly journals THE RETURN ON SOCIAL SECURITY WITH INCREASING LONGEVITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 462-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Knell
Keyword(s):  
Working Life ◽  
Social Optimum ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Internal Rate Of Return ◽  
Policy Regimes ◽  
Pension Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Retirement Decisions ◽  
Pension Benefits ◽  
The Impact

In this paper I study the impact of increasing longevity on pay-as-you-go pension systems. First, I show that increasing longevity increases the internal rate of return. The size of the effect differs for different policy regimes. It is higher for the case where the retirement age is increased to keep the system in balance than for the case where the necessary adjustment is achieved by reducing pension benefits. Second, I study optimally chosen retirement decisions and I show that the socially optimal policy involves a shorter working life than the private optimum. The social optimum can be implemented by the use of a PAYG system that combines an actuarial and a flat pension.

Targeted poverty reduction under new structure

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxin Wang ◽  
Luxia Wang ◽  
Huaqing Wu ◽  
Yangguang Zhu ◽  
Xing Shi
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social capital on the mental health of older adults in rural China. The authors also examine potential heterogeneous effects and two possible pathways from social capital increase to mental health improvement. Design/methodology/approach Based on a panel data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper employs a fixed effect model to examine the impact of social capital on health. A two-stage instrumental variable approach is adopted to alleviate the issue of endogeneity. Findings Results demonstrate that social capital has improved the mental health of older adults in rural China significantly. The beneficial effect is stronger for female, people with lower income, aged people and mainly observed in the central and western regions. Social capital affects the mental health of rural older adults through raising the awareness of healthy behavior and lowering the searching cost of health-related information. Practical implications Social capital plays a vital role in improving the mental health of older adults in rural China and is necessary for the construction of beautiful countryside in China. The authority should increase the investment in both the hard and soft infrastructure to improve the mental health of rural residents and narrow the inequality in health status. Originality/value This study enriches the empirical literature on the relationship between social capital and mental health by providing new evidence from China. Also, we choose the social activities and communications of individuals to construct a standardized index for social capital, which can better capture the social capital at the individual level.

scholarly journals Towards a political economy of welfare in Croatia

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (223) ◽  
pp. 105-136
Author(s):  
Paul Stubbs
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Implications ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Font Color

A political economy of social welfare in Croatia explores drivers of, and impediments to, change, addressing the impact of processes of neo-liberalisation, the complexities of regulatory and institutional landscapes and the interactions of nation, familialism, and class. Instead of a stable welfare regime, Croatia?s welfare system is marked by hybridity in the context of a political economy that continues to be crisis- prone. This paper focuses on the social welfare implications of the mix of ?crony?, ?authoritarian? and ?predatory? capitalism present in Croatia since independence. Other than the role of international actors including the World Bank and the European Union, and notwithstanding the lack of political will for reform, we suggest that two broad forces are dominant in shaping social welfare in Croatia. The first is war veterans? associations and their supporters, keen to maintain and even extend their significant benefits in return for continued support for the HDZ party (Croatian Democratic Union), a quasi-institutionalised form of ?social clientelism?. The second is an empowered radical right, promulgating a conservative Catholic agenda of a return to ?traditional? - that is, heteronormative - family values, reinforcing an aggressive Croatian nationalism and advocating ?demographic renewal?. <br><br><font color="red"><b> This article has been corrected. Link to the correction <u><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/EKA2024131E">10.2298/EKA2024131E</a><u></b></font>

A Global Political Economy of Care

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Yeates
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Organisation Of Care ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Care is an important analytical concept in social policy because of what its social organisation reveals about social formations and the nature of welfare states. To date, social policy analyses of care have focused on the social (re)organisation of care within nation states, which are largely treated as ‘sealed’ entities. Consequently these analyses neglect to examine the impact of transnational processes on the socio-organisational shifts observed. This article outlines the contours of a global political economy (GPE) of care with a view to elucidating the transnational dimensions to care restructuring. It focuses in particular on domestic care labour because of the extensive internationalisation of domestic services and its significance for the social relations of production and the division of labour. The discussion reflects on analytical issues for the academic study of social policy and care raised by a GPE approach.

John Neville Keynes: The Social Philosophy of a Late Victorian Economist

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Tilman ◽  
Ruth Porter-Tilman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Minor ◽  
The Impact

John Neville Keynes (1852–1949) is best known for fathering one of the most influential economists of our time, John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Yet in his own day he was a formidable logician1 and economist himself. Although overshadowed by his colleague Alfred Marshall, his Scope and Method of Political Economy (1891) is still considered a minor classic and read by specialists in the history of economic thought. Maynard Keynes's biographers have portrayed Neville as having a powerful influence on him, even if they have failed to detail the impact of the father's logic and economics on his famous son.

scholarly journals Selfishness Level of Strategic Games

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 207-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. R. Apt ◽  
G. Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Price Of Anarchy ◽  
Congestion Games ◽  
Price Of Stability ◽  
Social Optimum ◽  
Potential Game ◽  
Strategic Games ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

We introduce a new measure of the discrepancy in strategic games between the social welfare in a Nash equilibrium and in a social optimum, that we call selfishness level. It is the smallest fraction of the social welfare that needs to be offered to each player to achieve that a social optimum is realized in a pure Nash equilibrium. The selfishness level is unrelated to the price of stability and the price of anarchy and is invariant under positive linear transformations of the payoff functions. Also, it naturally applies to other solution concepts and other forms of games. We study the selfishness level of several well-known strategic games. This allows us to quantify the implicit tension within a game between players' individual interests and the impact of their decisions on the society as a whole. Our analyses reveal that the selfishness level often provides a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the underlying game that influence the players' willingness to cooperate. In particular, the selfishness level of finite ordinal potential games is finite, while that of weakly acyclic games can be infinite. We derive explicit bounds on the selfishness level of fair cost sharing games and linear congestion games, which depend on specific parameters of the underlying game but are independent of the number of players. Further, we show that the selfishness level of the $n$-players Prisoner's Dilemma is c/(b(n-1)-c), where b and c are the benefit and cost for cooperation, respectively, that of the n-players public goods game is (1-c/n)/(c-1), where c is the public good multiplier, and that of the Traveler's Dilemma game is (b-1)/2, where b is the bonus. Finally, the selfishness level of Cournot competition (an example of an infinite ordinal potential game), Tragedy of the Commons, and Bertrand competition is infinite.

scholarly journals Understanding the excess psychosis risk in ethnic minorities: the impact of structure and identity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah E. Jongsma ◽  
Saffron Karlsen ◽  
James B. Kirkbride ◽  
Peter B. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Ethnic Minority Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychosis Risk ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Purpose Psychotic disorders, which are associated with substantially increased morbidity and mortality, are up to five times more common in some ethnic minority groups compared with the white majority in Western countries. This long-standing and well-replicated public mental health disparity has hitherto largely eluded adequate explanation. We argue that this might have arisen in part due to the lack of attention given to theoretical work characterising the complex and multidimensional social nature of ethnicity by those epidemiological investigations that have dominated the literature. Methods To bridge this gap, we draw on theoretical and empirical literature from across the social sciences considering the ontological significance of ethnicity (as biology, migration, racialised structures and identity) and its relationships with psychotic disorders to illuminate probable drivers of excess psychosis risk. Results The largest gains in our theoretical understanding of excess psychosis risk among ethnic minority groups are to be made by considering ethnicity in relation to disempowerment resulting from structural and identity-based exclusion. The former is readily studied through the social gradient in health: socioeconomic disadvantage clusters in some ethnic minorities and increases the risk of poor health outcomes, including psychosis. Furthermore, limitations on identity acquisition and expression imposed by the ethnic majority can further contribute to alienate ethnic minorities and increase psychosocial disempowerment (a lack of control over one’s life). Conclusion We theorise that structural and identity-based exclusion act as the primary drivers shaping variation in rates of psychotic disorder by ethnic minority status.

scholarly journals THE TYPOLOGY OF POLITICAL CULTURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-19
Author(s):  
Олег Омеличкин ◽  
Oleg Omelichkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Specific System ◽  
Present Complex ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

The paper deals with some theoretical and methodological issues of political culture typology. It examines the principal approaches and classifications and elicits their fractionality, eclecticism and diversity of criteria. It is emphasized that the differentiation of political cultures is supposed to occur on political grounds. The author understands the concept of culture as a specific system of values and models of political participation which are widely recognised in society and serve to structure the political process. Originally, they are not perfectly homogeneous and often act in various combinations with other types. The research proposes a typology of political culture based on the content-related and formative characteristics of the social phenomenon in question. The identified types present complex theoretical constructs which include variegated and non-random combinations of system-forming attributes and features. The author studies the role and types of political subcultures reflecting the impact of social, national, religious, geographic and other factors. He also substantiates the possibility of the esthetic evaluation of politics.

Researching the end-of-life in old age: cultural, ethical and methodological issues

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIZ LLOYD ◽  
KATE WHITE ◽  
EILEEN SUTTON
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Good Death ◽  
Older Person ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTIncreased life expectancy has strengthened the association between old age and death, with significant implications for gerontology and for the generation of knowledge through research. The global rise in chronic disease has had a significant impact on the duration and shape of dying trajectories in old age and their variations. This development poses ethical and methodological challenges for researchers, not least because it is often difficult to establish whether an older person is ‘dying from’ as opposed to ‘living with’ one or more diseases. This paper reports a comprehensive literature review of empirical research on the end-of-life in old age, and has two inter-related themes. It explores the social and cultural contexts of death and critically analyses the methods and ethical approaches adopted by researchers. Cross-cultural studies and studies in which cultural factors were of prime interest were selected with a view to examining the concept of a ‘good death’ in old age. The paper discusses the evidence of cultural similarities and differences and the impact of social and cultural change on ideas concerning a good death. It identifies contemporary influences and pressures on end-of-life care for older people and discusses the significance of communication and the roles of families and service providers. The paper concludes by identifying substantive and methodological lessons for researchers in gerontology and suggests ways in which the impact of research might be enhanced.

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