Does an effective bankruptcy reform impact the selling cost behavior of firms? Evidence from India

This study examined whether strengthening of creditors' rights impacts the selling cost behavior of firms or not? To investigate this question, the author exploited implementation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in 2016 in India as an exogenous policy shock. The author found that selling cost of firms in India in the pre-implementation period were not “sticky”. Further, implementation of the IBC produced no impact on the selling cost behavior of Indian firms in the post-implementation period. Nonetheless, legislation of the IBC was found to have lowered financial resources that firms devoted to their selling activities. In addition, firms that faced a higher risk of bankruptcy because of more leverage in the pre-IBC period demonstrated greater response to promulgation of the IBC. Thus, it can be inferred that an effective bankruptcy reform has little impact on the selling cost behavior of firms but incentivizes them to devote lesser financial resources to their selling activities in order to lower their bankruptcy risk.     

Do the IMF and the World Bank influence voting in?the?UN General Assembly?

Using panel data for 188 countries over the 1970–2008 period, this paper analyzes empirically the influence of the IMF and the World Bank on voting patterns in the UN General Assembly. Countries receiving adjustment projects and larger non-concessional loans from the World Bank vote more frequently in line with the average G7 country. The same is true for countries obtaining non-concessional IMF programs. Regarding voting coincidence with the United States, World Bank non-concessional loans have a significant impact, while IMF loans do not. This overall pattern of results is robust to the choice of control variables and method of estimation.     

Does online voting change the outcome? Evidence from a multi-mode public policy referendum

Do online and offline voters differ in terms of policy preferences? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of new modes of voting is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n = 5.7 million) and online (n = 1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conducted two surveys to better understand the demographic profiles of who chooses to vote online and offline. We find that policy preferences of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between offline and online voters.     

Do Rural Migrants Divide Ethnically in the City? Evidence from an Ethnographic Experiment in India

Despite rapid urbanization across the Global South, identity politics within rural‐urban migrant communities remains understudied. Past scholarship is divided over whether village‐based ethnic divisions will erode or deepen within diverse poor migrant populations. I assess these divergent predictions through an ‘ethnographic survey experiment’ (N=4,218) among unique samples of poor migrants in India. Contra conventional expectations, I find intra‐class ethnic divisions are neither uniformly transcended nor entrenched across key arenas of migrant life. Instead, I observe variation consistent with situational theories predicting ethnic divisions will be muted only in contexts triggering a common identity among migrants. I pinpoint urban employers and politicians as these triggers. Poor migrants ignore ethnic divisions when facing these elites, who perceive and treat them in class terms. However, migrants remain divided in direct interactions with each other. These bifurcated findings imply poor migrants may be available for both class‐based and ethnic mobilization in the city.     

Do parties respond strategically to opinion polls? Evidence from campaign statements

This article investigates how parties respond to polling results on the campaign trail. I argue that parties use pre-election polls as mobilization and fine-tuning devices. Opinion surveys that exceed expectations can be exploited to mobilize the party base. Disappointing polls, in turn, are publicly downplayed and criticized. However, this information can be used to refine campaign strategies. Parties underperforming in the polls have incentives to emphasize their own policy positions and to attack other parties. These arguments are supported by evidence from 2140 campaign statements by Portuguese party leaders over two elections, combined with polling results. The findings suggest that parties carefully adjust their campaign rhetoric in response to public opinion signals. The study contributes to research on elite behavior and political representation. Moreover, it shows how research on campaign effects can benefit from a closer attention to the supply-side of campaigns.     

Do two-year colleges increase overall educational attainment? Evidence from the states

Are two- or four-year colleges more efficient at increasing the educational attainment of young adults? I use state variation in two- and four-year college systems to address this question at the state level. I find that the composition and cost of higher education in a state affect the enrollment decisions of individuals in that state. Further, attending a two-year rather than a four-year college may lower the educational attainment of some students, but more students will benefit from the community college alternative. It also most likely costs the state more to educate a student in a four-year rather than a two-year college. As a result, community colleges provide a potentially efficient way to increase access to higher education as well as increase the overall educational attainment of a state's residents.     

Does ticket-splitting decrease the accuracy of recalled previous voting? Evidence from three German panel surveys

This paper addresses the role of ticket-splitting in decreasing the accuracy of recalled previous voting. It suggests that ticket-splitting makes recalling vote choice a more difficult task and thus increases recall error. Using data from three German panel surveys conducted from 1998 to 2008, the paper demonstrates that ticket-splitting increases recall error by a considerable margin, even after controlling for behavioral and attitudinal predictors. This finding suggests that recall accuracy is not a stable voter characteristic. It also lends credence to the notion that the increase in ticket-splitting in recent German elections decreased the accuracy of recalled previous voting. Finally, the evidence suggests that electoral systems affect the validity of survey answers concerning previous vote choice.     

Presidentialisation in the Executive Sphere? Evidence from Norwegian Cabinets

Empowerment of state leaders has been apparent over the last decades in various parliamentary democracies. Signs of this development, often labelled ‘presidentialisation’, have been reported in the executive sphere also in Sweden and Denmark in recent years. Few accounts have been made of developments in Norway. This article studies Norwegian cabinets for the last 25 years in light of the so‐called ‘presidentalisation thesis’. The article finds no clear tendency of prime ministers appointing more weak and controllable ministers, or more frequently making reshuffles in cabinet, as one would expect from the presidentialisation thesis. However, the Prime Minister's Office has been clearly strengthened, suggesting that the prime ministers' ability to coordinate cabinet policy has increased.     

Do constitutions matter? Evidence from a natural experiment at the municipality level

This paper asks if it does matter for taxes and government spending whether the mayor is elected (and recalled) by direct election or by the municipal council. It thus contributes to the economic literature on the impact of constitutions on economic outcomes. The effects are identified based on reforms of the municipal constitutions that were exogenous from the point of view of the municipalities in content and timing: each year, quasi-randomly selected groups of municipalities introduced the new constitution. This setup helps overcome endogeneity and identification issues that are common to many studies in the field using country level data. Using a new panel dataset of the 686 municipalities in three German states, this paper shows that direct mayoral election and recall through referendum only (as opposed to election and recall through the municipal council) reduce tax rates and increases spending on government employees.     

Do technocrats boost the acceptance of policy proposals among the citizenry? Evidence from a survey experiment in Italy

Are policies proposed by technocrats more easily accepted by citizens than those proposed by traditional partisan actors? This is a crucial question, as politicians increasingly rely on technocrats for resolving “wicked problems” such as financial, environmental, and health crises. To answer this question, we conducted a survey experiment among 5000 Italian respondents. At the time of our experiment, Italy was governed by a “grand coalition” of various technocratic and partisan actors, enabling us to realistically vary the proponents of different policy proposals. Overall, citizens are more likely to accept policies proposed by technocrats as opposed to party leaders. In particular, we find that technocratic proponents boost policy acceptance even more for economic and valence issues. Furthermore, we find that this “technocratic effect” is generally stronger among citizens who are more likely to disagree with the policy content.     

A banana republic? The effects of inconsistencies in the counting of votes on voting behavior

Public Choice - We examine whether local inconsistencies in the counting of votes influence voting behavior. We exploit the case of the second ballot of the 2016 presidential election in Austria....     

Are 16-year-olds able to cast a congruent vote? Evidence from a “voting at 16” initiative in the city of Ghent (Belgium)

An often used argument against lowering the voting age to the age of 16 is that this age group would lack a sufficiently high level of “political maturity” and therefore would not be able to cast a vote that is in line with their political opinions. In this paper, we use a unique initiative set up by the city of Ghent (Belgium) to invite 16- and 17-year-olds to take part in a mock election to investigate whether adolescents are able to cast an ideologically congruent or “correct” vote. Our results do not show differences in proximity voting between adolescents and adult respondents. Furthermore, we find no evidence of socio-economic stratification in the extent to which adolescents cast a congruent vote. Our conclusion, therefore, is that this recurrent argument against lowering the voting age lacks empirical validity.     

Do impersonal mobilisation methods work? Evidence from a nationwide Get-Out-the-Vote experiment in England

While face-to-face mobilisation has a demonstrable effect on voter turnout, a series of field experiments show that impersonal methods, such as telephoning and direct mail, are less effective. This paper provides a new test of the effectiveness of telephone and direct mail on voter turnout, which uses a large nationally representative Get-Out-the-Vote two-wave field experiment. We find that impersonal methods are more effective, though the magnitude depends on electoral context. Moreover, these effects accumulate both within and across elections as voters are exposed to multiple contacts. However this is an incremental and cumulative process, not the product of synergy.     

Do Better Monitoring Institutions Increase Leadership Quality in Community Organizations? Evidence from Uganda

We offer a framework for analyzing the impact of monitoring—a commonly recommended solution to poor leadership—on the quality of democratically elected leaders in community organizations in low‐income countries. In our model, groups may face a trade‐off between leader ability and effort. If the group's ability to monitor the leader is low, then the leader may exert too little effort. A higher level of monitoring increases leader effort, raising the value of the public good. However, more intense monitoring may also drive higher‐ability members to opt out of candidacy, reducing public‐goods value. The result is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the level of monitoring and the value of the public good. The trade‐off between leader effort and ability, however, only exists in the presence of sufficient private‐income opportunities. These predictions are assessed using original data gathered from Ugandan farmer associations.     

Do ideological and political motives really matter in? the?public choice of local services management? Evidence from urban water services in Spain

This paper studies the influence of ideology and political motives on the choice of management for urban water services. Our contribution is two-fold. Firstly, we use a considerably more detailed set of variables to represent ideological and political motives than previous research. Secondly, the variables that explain local politicians’ decisions are observed at the time decision-making occurs, rather than at a later date. Beyond pragmatic reasons, we find that ideological and political motives also matter when explaining decisions regarding the management of water services. Furthermore, considering the time dimension of decision-making noticeably improves the explanatory power of our model.     

Do conditional cash transfer programs shift votes? Evidence from the Honduran PRAF

How do national social programs influence local voting? This study utilizes the experimental set up of a conditional cash transfer program to show that small, targeted cash transfers can have large electoral effects. The Honduran PRAF program allocated an average of $18 per capita per year to poor households within municipalities that were randomly assigned to receive the program. Although the program was administered at the national level, the program increased an incumbent mayor's re-election probabilities by 39%, without significantly influencing voting behavior in presidential elections. Moreover, the evidence suggests that transferring cash to poor households were more effective at increasing political support than interventions providing public goods for poor villages.     

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 industry associations influence corporate environmentalism in developing countries? Evidence from Trinidad and Tobago

As environmental regulations increase, industry associations play a growing role in representing their respective members. This role has been documented in many industrialized countries but less so in emerging economies. In this study, we investigate the level of corporate environmentalism exhibited by member firms of two industry associations operating in Trinidad and Tobago. Using a two-stage Heckman regression that corrects for the endogeneity introduced by self-selection bias in the evaluation of voluntary choices, our findings indicate that firms that are members of the foreign-originated American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad and Tobago appear to show stronger corporate environmentalism than those belonging to the locally formed Chamber of Commerce. Enhanced institutional pressures from these respective industry associations, peers and competitors within associations, access and exposure to best practices, networking opportunities and service bundling may explain these differences. These results suggest that environmental policy makers in emerging economies may be able to leverage foreign-originated industry associations to promote stronger corporate environmentalism. Policy makers may need to consider how to encourage local chambers to emulate the some of the institutional conditions of foreign-originated ones.     

Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico

This article reexamines the argument that targeted programs increase pro‐incumbent voting by persuading beneficiaries to cast ballots against their first partisan choice. The evidence comes from the randomized component of Progresa, the pioneering Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Experimental data show that early enrollment in the program led to substantive increases in voter turnout and in the incumbent’s vote share in the 2000 presidential election. The experiment also reveals that opposition parties’ vote shares were unaffected by the program. Thus, the electoral bonus generated by CCTs may be best explained by a mobilizing rather than persuasive mechanism. These findings are difficult to reconcile with the notion that the electoral effects of CCTs are a result of prospective concerns triggered by threats of program discontinuation or endogenous program enrollment. Instead, the evidence in this article suggests that CCTs’ mobilizing effects are compatible with programmatic politics.