Reforming China's Stock Market: Institutional Change Chinese Style

In this article we examine the dual-track pricing system in China's stock market since its inauguration, a legacy of its economic transition and a major source of institutional predation in the market. We then examine the share structure reform initiated in 2005 that sought to eliminate the distortion this predation had elicited. We interpret the reform push as a process of institutional change and focus on the drivers and theoretical explanations of such changes in China's stock market. We thus advance a model for understanding institutional change, Chinese style. We argue that, initially, the institutional arrangement was constructed by the dynamics of transition – the juxtaposition of the Leninist state and the emerging stock market. This provided huge incentives for state corruption in the emerging market. As the market transition proceeded, the societal and political costs of corruption and market distortion also grew, which produced a crisis that eventually attracted the attention of powerful leaders of the party state. We argue from this case that the broader political context in which specific examples of institutional change occur needs to be examined. Specifically, we argue that powerful agents who are external to given institutional environments can play an important role in institutional change, thus highlighting the political dynamics of an authoritarian state amid systemic transition and global integration.     

The Role of Motivation and Leadership in Public Employees’ Job Preferences: Evidence from Two Discrete Choice Experiments

Two discreet choice experiments investigated how three styles of leadership (i.e., transformational, transactional, and ethical) and three job features aimed at activating different motivational forces (i.e., public service motivation, external regulation, and intrinsic motivation) simultaneously and independently affected the job preferences of a sample of public employees. Subjects displayed a strong preference for jobs that benefit more citizens, that are more interesting, and that require working under ethical leaders rather than unethical ones. Whereas the prospect of a 5% salary increase strengthened participants’ preferences for a given position, offering a 1% salary raise did not significantly change subjects’ job choices. Furthermore, participants did not appear to have any preference for working under a transformational leader rather than a transactional leader.     

Designating Safety,Denying Persecution: Implications for Roma Refugee Claimants in Canada

In response to the arrival in Canada of thousands of Hungarian Roma asylum seekers, a new and restrictive refugee regime was installed. Legislation included Designated Countries of Origin or “safe” countries from which refugee claimants were stripped of some entitlements. Acceptance rates fluctuate in loose reticulation with several factors. When negative decisions are made on refugee claims, conditions of persecution in Hungary are denied even though they are clearly demonstrable. Inclusion of claimants' voices substantiates a normalized violence. When decision makers parse the criterion of persecution and when political leaders dismiss claims as “bogus,” the consequence is the reconfiguration of the Roma as essentially nomadic.     

Child Health in Elementary School Following California's Paid Family Leave Program

We evaluate changes in elementary school children health outcomes following the introduction of California's Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, which provided parents with paid time off following the birth of a child. Our health outcomes—overweight, ADHD, and hearing‐related problems—are characterized by diagnosis rates that only pick up during early elementary school. Moreover, our health outcomes have been found to be negatively linked with many potential implications of extended maternity leave—increased breastfeeding, prompt medical checkups at infancy, reduced prenatal stress, and reduced non‐parental care during infancy. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS) within a difference‐in‐differences framework, our results suggest improvements in health outcomes among California elementary school children following PFL's introduction. Furthermore, the improvements are driven by children from less advantaged backgrounds, which is consistent with the notion that California's PFL had the greatest effect on leave‐taking duration after childbirth mostly for less advantaged mothers who previously could not afford to take unpaid leave.     

Privileged Exclusion in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Ethnic Return Migration,Citizenship, and the Politics of (Not) Belonging

This article explores issues of citizenship and belonging associated with post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s repatriation programme. Beginning in 1991, Kazakhstan financed the resettlement of over 944,000 diasporic Kazakhs from nearly a dozen countries, including Mongolia, and encouraged repatriates to become naturalised citizens. Using the concept of ‘privileged exclusion’, this article argues that repatriated Kazakhs from Mongolia belong due to their knowledge of Kazakh language and traditions yet, at the same time, do not belong due to their lack of linguistic fluency in Russian, the absence of a shared Soviet experience, and limited comfort with the ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that characterises the new elite in this post-Soviet context.     

Are Tax Havens Good Neighbours? FDI Spillovers and Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of tax havens on non-tax haven countries in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI). We analyze the importance of agglomeration effects by including FDI inflow levels in tax havens and capture geographic spillovers by measuring proximity to the nearest tax haven. Our analysis yields several interesting findings. First, using panel data for 142 countries, we find evidence of positive spillovers from tax havens to nearby developing countries, but not to nearby developed countries. Second, restricting our panel to developing countries, we find the positive effect of tax haven FDI on developing countries to be robust. Third, we find that geographic distance matters for financial flows: developing countries which are the closest to a nearby tax haven benefit the most in terms of FDI inflows. This result is robust to accounting for spatial interdependence of FDI.