An economic or political Kuznets curve?

This paper examines two closely related empirical hypotheses: an economic Kuznets curve and a political Kuznets curve. We find a robust inverted-U relationship between income inequality and political development, but not one between income inequality and economic development. Exploring the cross-section aspect of the panel data, we find that the economic Kuznets curve is sensitive to different control specifications and to different functional specifications, but the political Kuznets curve is robust. Using dynamic panel data estimation, we find that the economic Kuznets curve does not hold up intertemporally while the political Kuznets curve does.     

Prospecting for (Campaign) Gold

Campaigns and political parties are faced with the immensely important practical challenge of financing their efforts. Raising money is instrumental to all other aims. In recent years, this task has been complicated by the need to enlist ever greater numbers of contributors to raise ever larger sums of money. At the same time, fundraising burdens are eased a bit because contributors flock together. That is, campaign contributing is a spatially dependent phenomenon, associated with affluence and the presence of networks. Accordingly, geospatial tools provide a helpful method for understanding and predicting where contributions can be most successfully mined.     

Can Labelling Policies Do More Harm Than Good? An Analysis Applied to Environmental Labelling Schemes

In certain plausible circumstances, the introduction of labelling schemes can lead to adverse effects. In the case of ecolabelling, the adverse effects are an environmental degradation rather than an environmental improvement. To take into account the environmental sensitiveness or responsiveness of consumers, we introduce the concept of environmental elasticity which enables us to classify goods. In a basic analytical model, we describe the conditions under which different outcomes—overall impacts of change in environmental quality due to environmental labelling—arise after the introduction of an ecolabelling scheme. We show that an ecolabelling scheme can lead to an increase in purchases of environmentally sustainable products. The net effect on the environment can be worse than the initial situation without ecolabelling, because the environmental unit improvement is compensated by an over-consumption. We suggest several tests to detect this potential perverse effect, some policy implications to avoid it and stress the need for further research.JEL Classification: D11, L15, Q28     

Rational lobbying and EU climate policy

Using a simple rational choice model as a heuristic device, this paper explores the lobbying behaviour of environmental and business organisations in the field of climate policy and discusses why their lobbying behaviour differs. I find that environmental organisations lobby less than what would be considered rational according to the simple rational choice model, and argue that this might largely be explained by tight budget constraints. I also find that business organisations lobby more than what would be considered rational according to the model, and argue that this might be explained if one applies a long-term perspective on rational lobbying in the policy field rather than a short-term perspective on single policy decisions. Moreover, I find that the type of lobbying differs. While environmental organisations focus on single policy decisions, business organisations also invest in general lobbying. The analysis is based on interviews with interest organisations lobbying in the field of climate policy at the European Union (EU) level.

VIETNAM-US PARTNERSHIP: PILLARS AND PROSPECTS

This essay analyses the foundations and future of the Vietnam-US partnership. It shows that Vietnam and the United States have sought to broaden and deepen the bilateral relations in three main areas: (i) trade and investment relations, (ii) political and security relations, and (iii) people-to-people cooperation. These areas continue to be the pillars for Vietnam and the United States to build up their ties. Given China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and the United States rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, Vietnam and the United States will become closer and will work together to add strategic values to their partnership.     

Project 0395A.ĐC | Performing disorientation

The end of the Vietnam/American War lead to one of the largest exoduses of the latter part of the twentieth century: more than 3 million people escaped from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos over the course of two decades starting in 1975, many by boat and an estimated 1 million died at sea. How do you witness and retell stories of violence in the aftermath of war and dispossession at sea in the context of U.S. empire and Vietnamese socialist revolution? Project 0395A.?C, a multi-media installation by Vietnamese artist, Ly Hoang Ly, intentionally structures and choreographs disorientation to grapple with the condition of being dispossessed at sea, as the Vietnamese refugee is suspended at sea and entangled in histories of French colonialism and caught at the crux of U.S. imperial war and Vietnamese socialist revolution. I argue that disorientation is a performative experience and method that performs an act of refusal to break voyeuristic modes of consuming histories of violence and reorients the body to another theory of Vietnamese refugee subjectivity. I analyze how Ly creates a performative installation and performs with water as the core aesthetic material used to frame, dialogue, and re-narrate a story of Vietnamese refugee subjectivity.     

城乡青少年焦虑和抑郁症状调查

通过对浙江省城市和农村中学生焦虑症和抑郁症水平的调查问卷发现 :有高达 70 %的中学生有较多的焦虑 ,其中 ,4 8%表示焦虑是由于生活并无多少乐趣 ,2 7%是睡眠障碍。生活在农村和有兄弟姐妹者有更严重的症状。不论是在城市或农村地区 ,焦虑的主要原因都与学校相关。 6 8%是学校的学习问题、 4 4%为家庭作业问题、 51 %和离校后的就业有关。女生中有 1 / 3的人受严重抑郁症状困扰 ,学习成绩差和农村住宅为相关的影响因素     

La bureautique et la bureaucratie: le cas d'un organisme du secteur public québécois

Sommaire: Les gouvernements se fient de plus en plus aux technologies de l'information afin de rendre plus efficaces leurs prises de décision et l'offre de services publics. Cette situation souligne bien la pertinence d'un examen des effets de l'introduction de l'informatique dans un univers bureaucratique. Plusieurs auteurs affirment que la technologie peut rendre l'administration publique moins bureaucratique à travers une décentralisation des décisions, étant donné qu'elle favoriserait une communication plus directe entre les employés, faciliterait un accès plus immédiat aux informations et permettrait une production plus autonome et plus valorisée. Toutefois, les résultats d'une enquête portant sur les effets de la bureautique concernant le fonctionnement des usagers-opérateurs dans un organisme du gouvernement du Québec, montrent que l'insistance des organisations publiques à utiliser la bureautique comme moyen d'augmenter la productivité et l'efficacité de leurs services, pourrait renforcer leur caractère bureaucratique. Abstract: Governments are increasingly relying on information technology in order to increase the effectiveness of decision-making and the delivery of public services. This emphasizes the relevance of examining the effects of introducing computers within the bureaucratic environment. Several authors state that technology can make public administration less bureaucratic by decentralizing decision-making, since it promotes more direct communications between employees, facilitates more immediate access to information, and permits more independent, empowered production. However, the results of an investigation into the impact of office computerization on the functioning of user-operators within a Quebec government organization show that the insistence of public organizations on using computerization as a means for raising the productivity and efficiency of their services could in fact strengthen their bureaucratic nature.