The OECD and “The Rest”: Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer

Abstract

Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called “Enhanced Engagement” programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD’s attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue.     

平等权初探

在平等理论的视角下,人类社会是沿着由平等发展为不平等,再由不平等过渡到平等的轨迹发展的。不平等是社会常态,平等可分为形式平等与实质平等。平等权是实现其他权利的基础。平等权的确立,需要加强宪政建设。     

Corruption and Economic Development in West African Economic and Monetary Union （UEMOA）

The theoretical and empirical debate on the effects of corruption on economic development is unclear. Available cross-country evidence suggests that the impact of corruption on economic development may be either positive or negative. It is widely assumed that the struggle against corruption is essential for economic growth. However, corruption is clearly a multidimensional concept, encompassing a variety of discrete components. The author reviews the theory underlying these different causal mechanisms linking corruption to economic growth, and provides an introduction to some outstanding measurement issues. This paper takes a critical look at the effect of corruption on economic development in West African Economic and Monetary Union （UEMOA）. The major results of the investigation indicate that all UEMOA countries are corrupt according to the variables of the Worldwide Governance Indicators （WGI）. UEMOA countries have a deficiency to control corruption, so they need to improve their system of control. As a result, the fight against corruption is still a necessary job for all of UEMOA people.     

中日经济立法与理论研究之比较

中日两国都是当今世界上经济法最为繁盛的国家。两国的经济都经历三个非常相似的阶段,两国的经济法立法相应地分为三个阶段。纵观中日两国经济法立法史,中、日两国都十分重视经济法立法,强调政府对经济发展的主导作用,立法赋予了政府较多市场规制权限,“强政府”形象凸显于市场。但是,二者之间的差异也是十分明显的。中国的经济法学研究在短短的二十年之内经历了模仿、引进阶段,逐步形成了独具特色、成熟的经济法理论体系,流派纷呈。在日本,经济法学界的分歧较小,普遍认为反垄断法是经济法的核心和基本内容。     

Practitioners’ perspectives on in-house versus arm’s-length structures of local economic development delivery in Ontario,Canada

ABSTRACT

The structure for local economic development is an important part of the development process. In recent years, local governments have been switching structures, leading to debates about the most appropriate structure for an effective economic development delivery. Based on in-depth interviews with practitioners of local economic development, the paper examines the strengths and drawbacks of the two primary structures in the Province of Ontario: In-house and Arms-length. In doing so, the paper accomplishes two things: first, it adds to the empirical discussion on organisational approaches to economic development; second, it provides an informed perspective to assist communities that might be considering switching their structures.     

When does inequality demobilize? New evidence from the American states

Income inequality has been rising throughout the industrialized world, particularly in the United States. This long been thought to depress turnout, but extant research has yielded mixed findings. Here, I argue that the inequality-turnout relationship is conditional, depending crucially on election salience. I test this by using three decades (1984–2014) of panel data from the U.S. states and by leveraging the fixed and exogenous occurrence of presidential (higher-salience) and midterm (lower-salience) elections. Overall, I find a negative and statistically significant relationship between income inequality and voter turnout in midterm election years, but a substantively small and non-significant relationship in presidential election years. I attribute this to the ability of presidential contests, relative to midterms, to counteract the demobilizing influence of high inequality, by piquing voters’ interest and activating citizens who would otherwise abstain. Overall, these findings help us to better understand of the politics of electoral participation in an era of high, and rising economic inequality.     

From opinions to policies: Examining the links between citizens,representatives, and policy change

Recent studies show that policy changes appear to correspond primarily to the preferences of citizens with high socio-economic status. However, the mechanisms explaining this trend remain largely unexplored. In this paper, I look closer at the role of political representatives as the critical factor connecting citizens’ opinions and policy changes. While the link between public opinion and elite opinion as well as the link between public opinion and policy output is relatively well studied, few studies have looked at the entire relationship between public opinion, elite opinion, and policy output concerning social groups. This paper combines data from Swedish election studies, surveys with members of parliament, and a database of policy change. It shows that representatives’ opinions reflect advantaged groups better than disadvantaged groups. Similar biases are found in policy responsiveness; policy changes correspond more closely to the opinions of the advantaged groups.     

Economic voting in multi-level contexts: Evidence from Kerala and West Bengal in India

What determines electoral support for national incumbent parties and state-level challengers in sub-national pro-poor contexts? Based on survey data from the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal, collected prior to the 2019 national election, we find that voters were more (less) inclined to vote for the sub-national incumbent relative to the national incumbent if their household economic conditions were perceived to have improved (deteriorated) relative to national economic conditions. Our findings indicate that voters in these settings correctly assume that the sub-national incumbent cannot be held responsible for changes in national economic conditions, but, at the same time, the existence of a strong welfare state at the sub-national level creates expectations that the sub-national government is responsible for personal welfare. Hence, the national election is used to assess the economic performance of both the sub-national and the national incumbent.     

Degrees of influence: Educational inequality in policy representation

Education plays an important role in the political, social and economic divisions that have recently characterised Western Europe. Despite the many analyses of education and its political consequences, however, previous research has not investigated whether government policy caters more to the preferences of the higher educated than to the preferences of the lower educated. We address this question using an original dataset of public opinion and government policy in the Netherlands. This data reveals that policy representation is starkly unequal. The association between support for policy change and actual change is much stronger for highly educated citizens than for low and middle educated citizens, and only the highly educated appear to have any independent influence on policy. This inequality extends to the economic and cultural dimensions of political competition. Our findings have major implications for the educational divide in Western Europe, as they reflect both a consequence and cause of this divide.     

The entrepreneurial society

This paper explains why and how entrepreneurship has emerged as an engine of economic growth, employment creation and competitiveness in global markets. The entrepreneurial society reflects the emergence as entrepreneurship as an important source of economic growth.