Information disclosure policy: Do state data processing efforts help more than the information disclosure itself?

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) was expected to reduce health risks stemming from emissions of hazardous chemicals by increasing public pressure on polluters. However, raw TRI data fails to transmit accurate information fitted to the public's interest. TRI is a massive and complex data set that, in its raw form, provides information on the pounds of toxics released, rather than the risks these releases pose to human health, which is the true quantity of interest. Consequently, raw TRI data needs to be refined and interpreted in terms of health risks by its users, which requires analytical sophistication and substantial data processing. State governments have attempted to increase of the usefulness of the TRI to the general public via two types of policies: (1) selection and dissemination of raw TRI data for plants within the state, and (2) data processing activities producing more refined reports and further data analysis. This study assesses the effectiveness of those two policies, asking how much each contributes to the intended policy outcome of reducing health risks. Our results show that state‐level data dissemination efforts lowered the total number of pounds of chemicals released, but had little effect on health risks. State‐level data processing efforts, in contrast, did lead to significant reductions in health risks. We conclude that simple dissemination of the data was ineffective (and even counterproductive in some instances), and that the states' data processing efforts have played a critical role in achieving the TRI's intended policy goal by providing better information to end users. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Do time restrictions on alcohol advertising reduce youth exposure?

Regulators may attempt to reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising by restricting times during which alcohol ads may be aired on television or radio. The Netherlands introduced such a policy and found that teenage advertising exposure increased following the time restrictions. This study uses simulation analysis and a comprehensive database of television alcohol advertising to demonstrate that time restrictions are likely to reduce advertising exposure to the youngest viewers while increasing exposure for the high‐risk teenage population. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The price of transparency: do campaign finance disclosure laws discourage political participation by?citizens�� groups?

We surveyed independent citizens?? groups who advertised in either of the Canadian federal elections of 2004 and 2006 to see whether financial reporting laws act as barriers to entry in politics. The most conservative estimates suggest that conforming imposes administrative costs of no more than 9% of group budgets. These small reporting costs and our finding that 61% of respondents believed reporting requirements discouraged independent groups from participating in elections suggest that there may be intangible but substantial costs to disclosure. Our survey indicates these costs arise from the fear of prosecution by authorities for alleged violations of reporting requirements.     

Do identity and status matter? A social identity theory perspective on the adaptability of low‐status expatriates

The study aims to investigate the effect of identify and status in the field of global mobility and expatriate management. It conceptualizes perceived prejudice towards low‐status expatriates (LSE) though the social identity theory (SIT) lens and examines the effect it has on two state self‐esteem domains, that is, performance self‐esteem and social self‐esteem. The study also highlights that the moderation roles education level and age of expatriates play towards their adaptability. In doing so, it seeks to expand the expatriate management domain by investigating the negative side associated with expatriation. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze responses from 373 LSE working in China. The results provide evidence indicating the significance attached to status and identity, thus indicating that perceived prejudice significantly affects expatriate's self‐esteem negatively and that age and education level mitigate these effects by moderating the relationship. Age and education level attained by the expatriates are found to be significant moderators in this relationship. The study therefore proposes the use of SIT as a powerful theoretical lens for understanding LSE.     

Do blue laws save lives? The effect of Sunday alcohol sales bans on fatal vehicle accidents

This paper analyzes the effect of state‐level Sunday alcohol sales restrictions (“blue laws”) on fatal vehicle accidents, which is an important parameter in assessing the desirability of these laws. Using a panel data set of all fatal vehicle accidents in the U.S. between 1990 and 2009 combined with 15 state repeals of blue laws, we show that restricting alcohol sales on Sunday has at most a small effect on fatal accident rates. Using American Time Use Survey data, we find no effect of blue laws on the location of consumption, and we show that the group whose drunk driving behavior is most affected by these laws is underage men. Overall, these results suggest that Sunday alcohol sales restrictions have fewer secular public health benefits, at least in terms of vehicle fatalities, than previously believed. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does Wal-Mart reduce social capital?

Social capital has attracted increasing attention in recent years. We use county-level and individual survey data to study how Wal-Mart affects social capital. Estimates using several proxies for social capital—such as club membership, religious activity, time with friends, and other measures—do not support the thesis that “Wal-Mart destroys communities” by reducing social capital. We measure exposure to Wal-Mart two ways: Wal-Marts per 10,000 residents and Wal-Marts per 10,000 residents aggregated over the years since 1979 to capture a more cumulative “Wal-Mart Effect.” We find that the coefficients on Wal-Mart’s presence are statistically insignificant in most specifications.     

Do vehicle recalls reduce the number of accidents? The case of the U.S. car market

The number of automobile recalls in the U.S. has increased sharply in the last two decades, and the numbers of units involved are often counted in the millions. In 2010 alone, over 20 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, and the massive recalls of full model lines by Toyota have brought this issue to the front pages around the country and the world. However, there is no quantitative evidence of the effect of recalls on safety. Without that evidence, the government and insurance companies have been reluctant to request and use more detailed recall information to increase correction rates, and regulators have not studied the possible link between the growing number of recalls and the risk of life for consumers. In this paper we empirically quantify the effect of vehicle recalls on safety using repeated cross‐sections on accidents of individual drivers and aggregate vehicle recall data to construct synthetic panel data on individual drivers of a particular vehicle model. We estimate the effect of recalls on the number of accidents and find that a 10 percent increase in the recall rate of a particular model reduces the accidents of that model by between 0.78 percent and 1.6 percent when using the full sample of accidents in our data. We also find that recalls classified as “hazardous” are more effective in reducing accidents, and the recall effect is especially strong when we restrict attention to accidents that lead to personal injuries and only include vehicles more likely to be at fault for the accident, but much less so for accidents that only lead to property damage. We also find that vehicle models with recalls with higher correction rates have on average fewer accidents in the years following a recall, which indicates the importance of the role of drivers' behavior regarding recalls on safety. Our findings suggest that policymakers should consider, for example, policies to allow insurance companies to take into account recall correction behavior when pricing auto insurance, which could be made possible through regulatory changes by the U.S. government, and should revisit the complex trade‐offs between pre‐ and post‐market regulation in this important industry. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Why Do Experienced Challengers Do Better than Amateurs?

Politically experienced challengers are more successful in seeking political office than amateurs. The relationship is found so regularly that political experience has become the standard ex ante indicator of challenger quality in studies of American elections. Despite this, little work has investigated why experienced challengers are so successful. Many scholars attribute the relationship to inherent differences between experienced challengers and amateurs: experienced challengers have stronger electoral skills and greater access to material resources. I argue that these differences play a role, but an indirect one. Rather, experienced challengers are lead by both their resource advantage and the high amount of risk they are exposed to in seeking office to run in races in which their party has a good chance of winning. Thus, the direct cause of the experienced challengers’ success is self-selection into winnable races. Empirical analysis supports the self-selection model over a model in which resources directly lead to success.

Do elections bring optimism?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of elections on economic sentiment. Using monthly data from 14 EU countries over the 1985–2011 period, we show that there is a significant improvement, statistically and economically, of sentiment of the month that elections take place, but this effect is rather short lived, lasting on average less than two months.     

Do barriers to candidacy reduce political competition? Evidence from a bachelor’s degree requirement for legislators in Pakistan

In the 2002 election, candidates for Pakistan’s federal legislature had to possess at least a bachelor’s degree. This policy disqualified 60 out of the 207 incumbent legislators from running for election again. Using a difference-in-differences approach with panel data on all electoral constituencies in Pakistan, I find that this ballot access restriction does not affect political competition across all constituencies with disqualified incumbents equally. Stronger political competition is defined as a larger number of candidates contesting election, a smaller vote share and vote margin for the winning candidate, and a less concentrated candidate field, as measured by a Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) of vote shares. Competition declined significantly in constituencies where the disqualified incumbent belonged to a small party and where literacy levels were lower (signifying a smaller pool of substitute candidates). However, political competition increased in areas where the disqualified incumbent was stronger in terms of his winning vote margin.     

Do Citizens Tolerate Antidemocratic Statements?

Antidemocratic statements by politicians have become part of politics in several backsliding democracies. Yet, we know little about how ordinary citizens think antidemocratic statements should be dealt with. We employ conjoint experiments fielded in the United States, Germany, and Hungary to investigate the extent to which citizens think undemocratic and other controversial statements should be restricted. Specifically, we randomly assign antidemocratic statements – threatening electoral integrity directly or indirectly – along with other controversial statements to hypothetical politicians running for elections. We show that citizens wish to ban antidemocratic statements relative to generic placebo statements. Moreover, this willingness corresponds to their willingness to ban other forms of controversial statements that either represent offenses to different identity markers or induce material risks. We also find that the willingness to ban antidemocratic statements is evident across the three countries and regardless of gender, education, age, and partisanship, with only modest differences in the results between countries and subgroups. Our findings thus indicate that citizens generally care about democracy, which is good news for democracy and electoral integrity, but also that they do not care more about democracy than other fundamental values related to material costs or identity markers.     

Do leadership-dominated parties change more?

It is often assumed that political parties have more fluid party platforms than in the past because internal veto players – like party activists – have lost the power to restrain the office-seeking party elite. Several case studies subscribe to this view. However, there is no systematic assessment of this relationship. Using new data this research note investigates this relationship and finds a clear positive effect of leadership domination on party platform change. With leadership domination increasing over time, our model predicts increasing fluidity in party platforms. This note provides a motivational and a numerical argument in favor of this hypothesis, considers alternative hypotheses and provides empirical evidence for the claim using two different datasets.     

Do banking crises improve democracy?

Public Choice - We study the relationship between banking crises and the level of democracy. We use an event-study method on a sample of up to 129 countries over the period 1975–2010...     

What Do Corporations Owe Citizens?

Institutional investors occupy an important location in the corporate governance system in countries with high shareholding, such as the US. As these are also countries where pensions are heavily invested in equities, the pension and corporate governance systems intersect, though they are usually analyzed separately. Institutional investors could play a more active role in corporate governance, but many if not most have not done so. Public pension funds are more proactive on corporate governance transparency issues than are the privately held funds, in part because the latter have some conflict of interest between those who own the parent firm and those who invest in the funds. Overall, institutional investors in the US have fewer powers over the managers than do the UK counterparts. Debates over SEC Rule 14a-8 which would give more power to IIs reflects the views and influence of competing lobbies on each side of the battleground among shareholders, managers, and employees over the cash flow of the firm, a battleground in which pension funds are increasingly important players.

Do Campaigns Drive Partisan Turnout?

Although campaign strategy often, and perhaps increasingly, emphasizes the mobilization of core supporters, we know little about whether campaigns affect the partisan complexion of the electorate. We examine whether the balance of Democratic and Republican voters depends on the balance of campaign activity, the popularity of the incumbent president, and the state of the economy. Drawing on time-series cross-sectional data from state exit polls, we demonstrate that the partisan composition of voters depends on campaign activity more than on the political and economic fundamentals.     

Do Women Make a Difference?

Using qualitative interviews the authors analyse how women politicians at local and national level are impacting upon politics and the policy-making process and how this is affecting the nature of the political environment.