Growth,the external terms of trade and endogenous trade liberalization

We study the effects of growth and changes in the external terms of trade on protection. There are two sectors, an urban sector and a rural sector, and trade policy is used to redistribute income between them. We show that growth precedes trade liberalization. In addition, we find that trade reform is triggered by falls in the world prices of primary exports or intermediate imports. These results are shown to hold for tariffs and quotas.     

Comparative advantage and trade liberalization in China

The relevance of Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage to the design of trade policy by developing and socialist countries is the subject of heated argument, particularly among Marxists who have yet to produce a satisfactory theory of international exchange based on value analysis. The debates among economists in China on their country's ‘open-door’ policy revealed the complexity of the central and related issues. Besides the possibility of being exploited and becoming dependent on developed economies, on which theorists of unequal exchange have sounded a good many warnings, developing countries also face other problems and dangers when they allow themselves to be guided by Ricardo's doctrine in conducting external trade, as the Chinese experience of trade liberalization in 1979–85 vividly demonstrated. This paper first presents an interpretative summary of the debates among the Chinese economists and then analyses what went wrong in the process of liberalization.     

Political transition,economic liberalization and civil service reform in Malawi

This article reviews the efforts aimed at reforming the civil service of Malawi at the same time as the country has been undergoing political transition and economic liberalization since 1991. Some of the measures in the civil service reform programme interfaced with either the political transition process (for example, the Public Service Act) or with economic policy reform (for example, privatization). In a few other cases, it was a mixture, a political economy perspective (for example, curbing corruption). The article draws attention to the achievements and problems of implementation, including the coordination of donor support, and highlights the lessons learned and the prospects for the remaining years of the decade and beyond. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 : 209–222 (1997). No. of Figures: 2. No. of Tables: 2. No. of Refs: 9.     

Political competition,party polarization,and government performance

Lack of party competition may impair government efficiency. If the voters are ideologically predisposed to cast their votes in favor of one political party, they may reelect an underperforming incumbent. Party polarization may magnify this effect since the median voter faces a higher cost of selecting a better, but ideologically distant incumbent. Alternatively, if the electorate is evenly divided between parties, polarization may induce parties to invest more effort in improving their election prospects. The current paper analyzes efficiency in Norwegian local governments. Efficiency has been measured by means of panel data on government service output over a 10-year period. Electoral dominance has been measured as number of elections wherein one party bloc receives at least 60 % of the votes, measured over six consecutive elections. Party polarization is defined as the ideological distance between the two party blocs, and it is measured on basis of survey data on the ideological preferences of elected politicians. Lack of party competition reduces efficiency, the effect being stronger in governments where more party polarization exists. These agency losses are larger in high-revenue municipalities.     

Impact of trade and investment on income surge in Bangladesh: Evidence from trade liberalization regime

Trade and investment are crucial drivers of economic growth. Successful execution of trade and investment policy can elevate a developing country to a sustained growth path and make it self-reliant. Bangladesh implemented a trade liberalization policy in the 1980s, deviating much from its conservative trade policy. This article assesses the impacts of trade, investment in physical as well as human capital, and a few trade policy variables on income surge for the liberalized regime. The econometric analysis finds that export, import, and domestic investment stimulate income. The impact of foreign investment is not conducive. Public spending on education also contributes to the income surge. Among the policy variables, trade openness and currency depreciation produce a beneficial impact. Population growth retards economic growth. The baseline results hold in the estimations involving several specifications of variables and testified as robust. The article views that a comprehensive approach to trade and investment policy would ensure the comparative advantage of trade and the well-being of Bangladesh.     

The political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations

This paper considers the political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations in a duopolistic product market. We investigate the environmental consequences and welfare implications of a home country’s unilateral tariff reduction on a polluting good. In a framework where the domestic environmental tax is subject to the influence of the home firm, we find that a tariff reduction on a good producing a consumption-type externality will improve the home country’s environmental quality. Moreover, we find that the home country’s tariff reduction will unambiguously enhance the home country’s welfare; and it will damage the foreign firm’s profits and thus the foreign country’s welfare, provided that the weight that the home government attaches to its social welfare is sufficiently small. This result also suggests the possibility that a unilateral tariff reduction will achieve a Pareto improvement.     

The US,Japan, and trade liberalization: from bilateralism to regional multilateralism to regionalism+

Abstract

Amid growing alarm over the rising atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, increasing attention is being given to ‘geo-engineering’ technologies that could counteract some of the impacts of global warming by either reducing absorption of solar energy (solar radiation management (SRM)) or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Geo-engineering has the potential to dramatically alter the dynamics of global climate change negotiations because it might cool the climate without constraining fossil fuel use. Some scholars have expressed concern that certain states may be tempted to act unilaterally. This paper assesses the approach that China is likely to adopt towards governance of SRM and the implications this holds for broader international climate negotiations. We survey Chinese public discourse, examine the policy factors that will influence China's position, and assess the likelihood of certain future scenarios. While Chinese climate scientists are keenly aware of the potential benefits of geo-engineering as well as its risks, we find that no significant constituency is currently promoting unilateral implementation of SRM. China will probably play a broadly cooperative role in negotiations toward a multilaterally governed geo-engineering programme but will seek to promote a distinctive developing world perspective that reflects concerns over sovereignty, Western imperialism and maintenance of a strict interpretation of the norm of common but differentiated responsibility.     

Asymmetry in Japan and Korea's agricultural liberalization in FTA: domestic trade governance perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the nexus between food security and sustainability governance through a case study of palm oil. Palm oil's advocates claim that campaigns against palm oil and actions to halt its expansion due to sustainability concerns can undermine its food security role. However, palm oil expansion more directly undermines the food and livelihood security of rural and indigenous communities when land that rightfully belongs to, or has been used by, these communities is alienated to firms for oil palm cultivation with little or no consultation or compensation provided or alternatives considered. It is in this context that the paper examines whether the multi-stakeholder Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is able to ensure that this commodity is cultivated in ways that minimise environmental damage and livelihood disruption, thereby safeguarding palm oil's contribution to food security. The findings are mixed. RSPO certification provides fairly comprehensive and progressive socio-environmental regulation that has enhanced sustainable production practises in this industry especially by the larger transnational plantation companies mindful of their global reputation. The RSPO is also far more responsive than governments have been to the land rights of rural and indigenous communities, providing due process for land claimants as well as recognising that these communities may have legitimate rights to land even if companies were awarded legal title by governments. However, multi-stakeholder regimes can be fragile, requiring a great deal of internal accommodation and trade-offs to work. Already, different interests in the RSPO are pulling in different directions while national certification systems have emerged that are less onerous compared to the RSPO even as the latter seeks to further enhance its sustainability credentials.     

Partisan bias and redistricting in France

Decided by the executive, redistrictings in France have been claimed to have substantial partisan bias in favor of the right. We examine the evidence for this claim in terms of France's left bloc versus right bloc politics, combining information from both the first and the second round of France's two round electoral system. We also examine data at the constituency level to look at factors, such as malapportionment, that can affect bias. As France is characterized by a pattern of a limited number of redistrictings, population inequalities have grown in legislative constituencies between plans. Although the procedures used to draw constituency boundaries for the French Assembly are rather opaque, and under the control of political authorities, partisan bias appears as minuscule.     

When trade liberalization turns into regulatory reform: The impact on business–government relations in international trade politics

Business–government relations on trade issues are generally characterized as protectionist lobbying or – less often – lobbying for the liberalization of markets. However, with the evolution of the trading system, negotiations today concern not just market opening, but also the regulatory frameworks that structure international trade. This transformation has important consequences for the ways in which private interests can contribute to trade negotiations. Instead of simply trying to exert pressure, businesses and other private actors now form working relationships with governments based on expertise, learning, and information exchange. This article illustrates these new forms of public–private interactions with examples from the USA, the European Union, and Brazil.     

Committee jurisdiction, congressional behavior and policy outcomes

The literature on congressional committees has largely overlooked the impact of jurisdictional fights on policy proposals and outcomes. This paper develops a theory of how legislators balance the benefits of expanded committee jurisdiction against preferred policy outcomes. It shows why (a) senior members, and junior members in safe seats, are most likely to challenge a committee’s jurisdiction; (b) policy proposals may be initiated off the proposer’s ideal point for jurisdictional gains; (c) policy outcomes will generally be more moderate with jurisdictional fights than without these turf wars. We empirically investigate these results examining proposed Internet intellectual property protection legislation in the 106th Congress.     

Political polarization in retrospective economic evaluations during recessions and recoveries

Retrospective economic evaluations are politically biased: across a broad range of democratic countries, supporters of the party that controls the executive provide evaluations that are systematically more positive than those of the rest of the electorate; similarly, ideological distance from the ruling party predicts more negative evaluations. Yet, during economic downturns, citizens of different ideological persuasions and partisan affiliations tend to agree that the state of the economy is dire. During recoveries, on the other hand, evaluations are polarized along partisan and ideological lines. Due to the psychological phenomenon of negativity bias, retrospective evaluations respond to economic downturns more strongly than to recoveries. As a consequence, the extent of polarization in public opinion varies dramatically between good and bad economic times.     

Regulatory lags,liberalization, and vulnerability to banking crises

This article explores the effect of delays in updating prudential regulation on the likelihood of a country experiencing banking crises, and it disentangles the impact of different aspects of regulation on crisis onset. I argue that delays in revision to banks' prudential regulation allow banks to adopt risky behavior, which increases a country's vulnerability to systemic banking crises. This effect, however, is conditional on the level of liberalization of the financial market. At lower levels of liberalization, banks have stronger incentives to escape the constraints of regulation and to take advantage of regulatory lags. At high levels of liberalization, the effect of regulatory lags is curbed, possibly by market discipline. Statistical analyses on a sample of developed and developing countries from 1974–2005 support this argument and help rule out the competing learning hypothesis. These results suggest that the effects of institutions can vary with the passage of time.     

Strategic institutional choice: Voters, states, and congressional term limits

States’ choices on term limits are quantified as a multiple-categorical variable capturing variation in the type of limits passed. Measures of relative political influence in Congress explain much of this variation. Using 1992 data on the American states, the model controls for unobserved heterogeneity due to voter access to direct democracy in some states. At 2002 values for congressional tenure and federal spending, the model predicts approximately eight to ten additional states would choose to limit their own members’ terms but cannot under a Supreme Court ruling. We discuss implications for institutional federalism and the potential passage of similar political institutions across the states.     

Policy views,constituency pressure,and congressional action on flag burning

Much of the rational choice literature suggests that constituency considerations will dominate decision-making when constituency concerns are pronounced and the issue is conducive to citizen audit. The 1990 House of Representatives vote on a constitutional amendment banning flag burning provides a good test of this argument. Drawing from a survey of legislators and polling data we argue that even in the face of salient constituency views legislators demonstrated a willingness to vote their policy views and cross their constituents. We explore how concerns about reputation and other considerations contributed to this phenomenon. We also suggest directions for future research.     

Ideological representation and competitive congressional elections

Competitive elections do not produce representation. We demonstrate that elections in which incumbents win by landslides yield Representatives who are ideologically closer to their voters than elections with narrow margins. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ideological proximity to one's Representative creates feelings of trust and efficacy, but that competitive elections do not. In fact, since competitive elections produce ideological distance between voters and their Representatives, and that distance produces dissatisfaction, competitive elections indirectly reduce voters' feelings of trust and efficacy. Thus, competitive elections are paradoxically harmful to representation.     

Decline and fall of congressional news

He has written widely about the Washington press corps. This article was originally prepared as a report for the Renewing Congress Project of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.