scholarly journals The unintended psychological and behavioral drawbacks of big push strategies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Qin ◽  
Kai Chi Yam ◽  
Guangrong Ma ◽  
Chen Chen ◽  
Hang Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Poverty Rate ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Developing Regions ◽  
Selfish Behavior ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Psychological Entitlement ◽  
Western Development ◽  
Big Push

Governments and policy makers often adopt big push strategies to help under-developing regions achieve economic growth and shake off poverty. Although numerous studies have documented big push strategies’ positive impacts on indicators of economic development (e.g., poverty rate, unemployment rate, etc.), the current research presents evidence of serious psychological and behavioral drawbacks of such policies. Specifically, we examine China’s Great Western Development (GWD) Program as a recent prominent example of a big push strategy, in which about 370 million people receive preferential benefits while more than 1 billion people do not. Using a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the boundary of the GWD Program (+/- 100 km), we find that individuals residing in non-GWD regions report higher levels of psychological entitlement compared to their counterparts residing in GWD regions. As a result of increased psychological entitlement, these individuals engage in more selfish behavior and less prosocial behavior. Our results offer initial evidence of the unintended psychological and behavioral consequences of big push strategies.

Politics and Local Economic Growth: Evidence from India

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Asher ◽  
Paul Novosad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Share Prices ◽  
Local Economic Growth ◽  
Night Lights ◽  
Ruling Party

Political favoritism affects the allocation of government resources, but is it consequential for growth? Using a close election regression discontinuity design and data from India, we measure the local economic impact of being represented by a politician in the ruling party. Favoritism leads to higher private sector employment, higher share prices of firms, and increased output as measured by night lights; the three effects are similar and economically substantive. Finally, we present evidence that politicians influence firms primarily through control over the implementation of regulation. (JEL D72, L51, O17, O18, O43, R11)

scholarly journals When Running for Office Runs in the Family: Horizontal Dynasties, Policy, and Development in the Philippines

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110242
Author(s):  
Dean Dulay ◽  
Laurence Go
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
The Family ◽  
Growth Economic

Political dynasties exist in practically every type of democracy, but take different forms in different places. Yet the types of dynastic structures have remained unexplored. We argue that horizontal dynasties—multiple members from the same political family holding different political offices concurrently—affect policymaking by replacing potential political rivals, who may oppose an incumbent’s policy choices, with a member of the family. But in developing countries, the policy change that accrues from dynastic status may not lead to higher levels of economic development. We test this argument’s implications in the Philippines. Using a close elections regression discontinuity design on a sample of mayors, we show that (i) horizontally dynastic mayors have higher levels of government spending, (ii) direct institutional constraints are the mechanism that drives this core result, and (iii) horizontally dynastic mayors do not lead to higher economic growth economic growth or lower poverty.

Commodity Shocks and Incumbency Effects

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Lucas M. Novaes ◽  
Luis Schiumerini
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Commodity Prices ◽  
Quality Changes ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Agricultural Commodities ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Suggestive Evidence ◽  
Local Economic Growth

Abstract Why do incumbents enjoy an electoral advantage in some political settings but suffer from a disadvantage in others? We propose a novel explanation linking variation in incumbency effects with exogenous commodity shocks. While voters attempt to sanction incumbents for economic performance, changes in commodity prices affect their evaluations and condition the electoral fortunes of incumbents vis-à-vis challengers. We test our argument in Brazilian municipalities, combining a plausibly exogenous measure of variation in commodity prices with a close election regression discontinuity design. Our results show that increases in the price of agricultural commodities greatly enhance the prospects of incumbents, while negative shocks exacerbate their incumbency disadvantage, especially in rural municipalities. Further investigation suggests that commodity shocks do not operate via voter learning about candidate quality, changes in the pool of candidates, shifts in voter preferences, or strategic elite investments. Instead, we find suggestive evidence that commodity shocks affect voters' evaluations through their effect on local economic growth.

Globalization, Poverty, Environmental Degradation and Economic Growth Nexus: Empirical Analysis of SAARC Regions

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adiqa Kiani ◽  
Ejaz Ullah ◽  
Khair Muhammad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Significant Negative Relationship ◽  
The Impact

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of poverty, globalization, and environmental degradation on economic growth in the selected SAARC countries. This study is employed panel Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) technique for empirical analysis using selected SAARC regions including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka over the period of 1980 to 2018. Globalization impacts economic growth positively and significantly.  In addition to this the significant negative relationship is found between population and economic growth. The results show that poverty is positively related with environmental degradation. Furthermore, the results indicate that globalization is positively and significantly associated with environmental degradation in the SAARC region. Finally, the results show that urbanization is positive and significantly associated with environmental degradation, which could be the serious concerns for the policy makers to control.

scholarly journals What We Talk about When We Talk about Poverty: Culture and Welfare State Development in Britain, Denmark and France

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Cathie Martin ◽  
Tom Chevalier
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
Cross National

Why did historical anti-poverty programs in Britain, Denmark and France differ so dramatically in their goals, beneficiaries and agents for addressing poverty? Different cultural views of poverty contributed to how policy makers envisioned anti-poverty reforms. Danish elites articulated social investments in peasants as necessary to economic growth, political stability and societal strength. British elites viewed the lower classes as a challenge to these goals. The French perceived the poor as an opportunity for Christian charity. Fiction writers are overlooked political agents who engage in policy struggles. Collectively, writers contribute to a country's distinctive ‘cultural constraint’, or symbols and narratives, which appears in the national-level aggregation of literature. To assess cross-national variations in cultural depictions of poverty, this article uses historical case studies and quantitative textual analyses of 562 British, 521 Danish and 498 French fictional works from 1770 to 1920.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of a Power Factor Correction Policy in Improving the Energy Efficiency of Large-Scale Electricity Users in Ghana

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Lotsu ◽  
Yuichiro Yoshida ◽  
Katsufumi Fukuda ◽  
Bing He
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Power Factor ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Power Factor Correction ◽  
Energy Crisis ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
The Government ◽  
Power Factor Improvement ◽  
The Impact

Confronting an energy crisis, the government of Ghana enacted a power factor correction policy in 1995. The policy imposes a penalty on large-scale electricity users, namely, special load tariff (SLT) customers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), whose power factor is below 90%. This paper investigates the impact of this policy on these firms’ power factor improvement by using panel data from 183 SLT customers from 1994 to 1997 and from 2012. To avoid potential endogeneity, this paper adopts a regression discontinuity design (RDD) with the power factor of the firms in the previous year as a running variable, with its cutoff set at the penalty threshold. The result shows that these large-scale electricity users who face the penalty because their power factor falls just short of the threshold are more likely to improve their power factor in the subsequent year, implying that the power factor correction policy implemented by Ghana’s government is effective.

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