scholarly journals ‘If Men Were Angels, No Government Would Be Necessary’: The Intuitive Theory of Social Motivation and Preference for Authoritarian Leaders

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Nettle ◽  
Rebecca Saxe

We postulate that at least two distinct cognitive systems affect political judgements. The first system, moral cognition, delivers intuitions about what societal outcomes would be ideal. The second system, which we dub the intuitive theory of social motivation, makes predictions about how other citizens will behave in practice, and hence feeds into opinions on how their conduct should be regulated. Both systems are situation sensitive. We illustrate this thesis through a study of intuitions about redistribution and governance. We present four experiments in which 750 U.K. adults prescribed ideal levels of redistribution for hypothetical societies under different circumstances, and predicted what level of redistribution those societies would actually be able to achieve. Participants judged that the level of redistribution societies would achieve was lower than the ideal. The gulf was particularly large for societies facing war or scarcity, because a subset of people was predicted to respond selfishly to these threats. Strong, authoritarian leaders were seen as more desirable in these circumstances. Specifically, this was because citizens facing these threats were predicted to become less amenable to rational persuasion and their inherent moral sense, and more amenable to control through harsh punishment, which is what strong leaders can deliver. We complement our experimental results with an analysis of World Values Survey data from 52 countries, showing that authoritarian governance preferences are positively associated with the perceived threat of war, and negatively associated with per capita GDP, a proxy for the abundance of resources.

2016 ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Zaytsev

Using level accounting methodology this article examines sources of per capita GDP and labor productivity differences between Russia and developed and developing countries. It considers the role played by the following determinants in per capita GDP gap: per hour labor productivity, number of hours worked per worker and labor-population ratio. It is shown that labor productivity difference is the main reason of Russia’s lagging behind. Factors of Russia’s low labor productivity are then estimated. It is found that 33-39% of 2.5-5-times labor productivity gap (estimated for non-oil sector) between Russia and developed countries (US, Canada, Germany, Norway) is explained by lower capital-to-labor ratio and the latter 58-65% of the gap is due to lower technological level (multifactor productivity). Human capital level in Russia is almost the same as in developed countries, so it explains only 2-4% of labor productivity gap.


Author(s):  
Frederick H. Wallace

The Fisher and Seater (1993) methodology is used to test for the long run neutrality of money in Guatemala, 1950-2001. Real GDP, real per capita GDP, and the money measures, M1 and M2, are integrated of order one [1(1)]. Given these orders of integration, the Fisher-Seater neutrality test can be applied. The evidence suggests that M1 and M2 are neutral with respect to real GDP. Furthermore, the test indicates that M1, but not M2, is neutral with respect to real per capita GDP as well.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Abdul Rasheed Sithy Jesmy ◽  
Mohd Zaini Abd Karim ◽  
Shri Dewi Applanaidu

Conflicts in the form of civil war, ethnic tensions and political discord are of enduring concern and a major bottleneck to economic development in Sri Lanka. Three decades of civil war and unethical political culture have caused severe economic problems for the country, including slower rate of growth and a huge defence expenditure. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of military expenditure and conflict on per capita GDP growth rate in Sri Lanka from 1973 to 2014 using the Solow growth model and ARDL bounds test approach. The results of the bounds test are highly significant and lead to cointegration. The negative and significant coefficients of the error correction term illustrate the expected convergence process in the long-run dynamic of per capita GDP. The estimated empirical results show that, the coefficients of military expenditure and conflict are negative and statistically significant in the short-run as well as in the long-run in determining per capita GDP growth rate in Sri Lanka. Hence, it is critically important to take necessary action to decrease military expenditure and provide an efficient political solution to the problem of minorities, specifically in the post-war period.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-289
Author(s):  
Eduard J. Alvarez-Palau ◽  
Alfonso Díez-Minguela ◽  
Jordi Martí-Henneberg

AbstractThis study explores the relationship between railroad integration and regional development on the European periphery between 1870 and 1910, based on a regional data set including 291 spatial units. Railroad integration is proxied by railroad density, while per capita GDP is used as an indicator of economic development. The period under study is of particular relevance as it has been associated with the second wave of railroad construction in Europe and also coincides with the industrialization of most of the continent. Overall, we found that railroads had a significant and positive impact on the growth of per capita GDP across Europe. The magnitude of this relationship appears to be relatively modest, but the results obtained are robust with respect to a number of different specifications. From a geographical perspective, we found that railroads had a significantly greater influence on regions located in countries on the northern periphery of Europe than in other outlying areas. They also helped the economies of these areas to begin the process of catching up with the continent’s industrialized core. In contrast, the regions on the southern periphery showed lower levels of economic growth, with this exacerbating the preexisting divergence in economic development. The expansion of the railroad network in them was unable to homogenize the diffusion of economic development and tended to further benefit the regions that were already industrialized. In most of the cases, the capital effect was magnified, and this contributed to the consolidation of newly created nation-states.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui He ◽  
Huazhang Miao ◽  
Zhijiang Liang ◽  
Ye Zhang ◽  
Wei Jiang ◽  
...  

AbstractInfants who are small for gestational age (SGA) are at increased risk of neonatal and infant death, non-communicable diseases and growth retardation. However, the epidemiological characteristics of SGA remain unclear. We aim to explore the prevalence of SGA and to examine its socioeconomic associations by using data from 21 cities. 10,515,494 single live birth records between 2014 and 2019 from the Guangdong Women and Children Health Information System were included in the study. Descriptive statistical methods were used to analyze the prevalence trend of SGA and its distribution. We also analyze the associations between the prevalence of SGA and per-capita GDP. The prevalence of SGA in Guangdong Province from the years 2014–2019 was 13.17%, 12.96%, 11.96%, 12.72%, 11.45%, 11.30% respectively, and the overall prevalence was 12.28%. The prevalence of term SGA infants in Guangdong Province was 12.50%, which was much higher than that of preterm SGA (7.71%). There was a significant negative correlation between the SGA prevalence and per-capita GDP in 21 cities of Guangdong Province. The level of economic development may affect the prevalence of SGA. The prevalence of SGA in full term infants is significantly higher than in premature infants, suggesting that most SGA infants may be born at a later gestational age.


2012 ◽  
Vol 616-618 ◽  
pp. 1512-1515
Author(s):  
Wei Hua Du

Take for example the BRIC economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China. We investigated the time series data on the relationship between carbon dioxide emission and economic growth in these fast-growing developing countries by both comparative statics and comparative dynamics. The results show that there is the monotonic relationship between total carbon dioxide emissions, carbon dioxide emissions per capita and per capita GDP in any one of the BRIC countries. And there is decreasing relationship between the carbon dioxide emissions per unit GDP and per capita GDP.


Author(s):  
XINRU LI ◽  
XUEMEI JIANG ◽  
YAN XIA

Focusing on the mitigation responsibilities and efforts, this paper provides a unified estimation of allowable emission quotas for a number of Asian economies to limit the global temperature rise well below 2°C based on a range of effort-sharing approaches. The study also explores the inconsistency between their planned emission pathways under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the allowable emissions to achieve the 2°C target. The results show that most of the Asian developing economies would be in favor of the Equal-Per-Capita and Grandfather criteria, for which they would obtain more allowable emissions quota. However, even with the most favorable criterion, official mitigation pledges represented by NDCs are far less enough for these developing Asian economies such as China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan, as their emission pathways under NDCs significantly exceed the ideal pathways under all effort-sharing approaches. In contrast, most of the Asian developed economies have already planned reductions of annual CO2 emissions under NDCs, in line with their ideal pathways under the most favorable effort-sharing approach. However, their reductions of emissions require deep strengthening of deployment in low-carbon, zero-carbon and negative-carbon techniques, given the current growing trend of emissions for these economies.


Author(s):  
Darma Mahadea ◽  
Irrshad Kaseeram

Background: South Africa has made significant progress since the dawn of democracy in 1994. It registered positive economic growth rates and its real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increased from R42 849 in 1994 to over R56 000 in 2015. However, employment growth lagged behind GDP growth, resulting in rising unemployment. Aim and setting: Entrepreneurship brings together labour and capital in generating income, output and employment. According to South Africa’s National Development Plan, employment growth would come mainly from small-firm entrepreneurship and economic growth. Accordingly, this article investigates the impact unemployment and per capita income have on early stage total entrepreneurship activity (TEA) in South Africa, using data covering the 1994–2015 period. Methods: The methodology used is the dynamic least squares regression. The article tests the assertion that economic growth, proxied by real per capita GDP income, promotes entrepreneurship and that high unemployment forces necessity entrepreneurship. Results: The regression results indicate that per capita real GDP, which increases with economic growth, has a highly significant, positive impact on entrepreneurial activity, while unemployment has a weaker effect. A 1% rise in real per capita GDP results in a 0.16% rise in TEA entrepreneurship, and a 1% rise in unemployment is associated with a 0.25% rise in TEA. Conclusion: There seems to be a strong pull factor, from income growth to entrepreneurship and a reasonable push from unemployment to entrepreneurship, as individuals without employment are forced to self-employment as a necessity, survival mechanism. Overall, a long-run co-integrating relationship seems plausible between unemployment, income and entrepreneurship in South Africa.


TEM Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1571-1579
Author(s):  
Ruslan Mudrak ◽  
Volodymyr Lagodiienko ◽  
Nataliia Lagodiienko ◽  
Vitalii Rybchak

The conducted correlation-andregression analysis revealed a close inverse connection between the functional characteristic "share of the expenditures for food and non-alcoholic beverages in the structure of the total expenditures of the households" and the factorial characteristic "GDP per capita by purchasing power parity, at constant prices". The response of the share of food expenditures in the structure of the total expenditures of the households to per capita GDP growth corresponds to the law of diminishing returns. The pattern is manifested in the long-term period.


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