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- Folke, Olle, 1979-
(författare)
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Parties, Power and Patronage : Papers in Political Economy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three empirical essays in political economics."Shades of Brown and Green: Party Effects in Proportional Election Systems" is the first paper to develop a method for estimating the causal effect of party representation in proportional election systems. This method is applied to Swedish municipalities. The results show that party representation has a large effect on immigration policy and environmental policy. Parties profiling themselves in a policy area also have the largest effects on it. There is no evidence for party representation having an effect on tax policy."Midterm Slumps in US State Elections: Coattails, Power Balancing, or Referenda?" examines midterm slumps in US state legislatures and the mechanisms that cause them. The results show that the party of the governor systematically loses legislative seats in the midterm elections. Through the use of a regression discontinuity design it can be ruled out that this is caused by a surge-and-decline type mechanism. Instead, the results suggest that the midterm slump can be attributed, in about equal shares, to the midterm elections being a referendum on gubernatorial performance and the voters using the midterms for balancing of power."Patronage and Elections in U.S. States" examines if control over patronage jobs increased a political party's probability of winning elections in US States. A patronage system is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, reward their supporters by giving them government jobs. The essay provides evidence that patronage does -- or, rather, did -- help U.S. parties in power to retain it. There is also evidence for an "entrenched" party in power for a longer time period can use patronage more effectively than a "weak" party that usually is out of power.
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| 2. |
- Klingelhöfer, Jan, 1976-
(författare)
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Models of Electoral Competition : Three Essays on Political Economics
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays in theoretical political economics. In "The Swing Voters' Blessing", I model elections with quality differences between two ideological candidates. The quality differences are only observable to a limited number of informed voters. I show that if uninformed voters follow an optimal strategy of only making their voting decisions dependent on their ideological position relative to the median voter, the candidate who is preferred by the median voter wins. Furthermore, I show that the existence of boundedly rational uninformed voters who always support the candidate whose policy offer is most attractive increases the welfare of the majority of voters. It forces candidates to announce positions closer to the median voter's bliss point."Lobbying and Elections" contributes to the literature on lobbying. Besley and Coate (2001) use their well-known citizen candidate framework and find that if citizen candidates with sufficiently extreme preferences are available, lobbying has no influence on implemented policy. I show that this result does not apply in a more realistic model with ideological parties instead of citizen candidates because the parties cannot adjust their policy positions. In a two-party system, even if forward-looking voters are aware that lobbying will take place, their choice between policies is different when lobbies do and do not exist. "Lexicographic Voting" reconsiders the division of the literature into models with forward-looking voters and models with backward-looking voters by developing a model that incorporates motives from both literatures. As long as there is no uncertainty about preferences and parties can commit in advance to the ideological dimension of policy, but not to a maximal level of rent extraction, voters can constrain the latter to the same extent as in a purely backward-looking model. At the same time, the policy preferred by the median voter is implemented.
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| 3. |
- Lindblad, Hans, 1960-
(författare)
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Essays on Unemployment and Real Exchange Rates
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the first essay, Persistence in Swedish Unemployment Rates, we study if there is no or weak tendency in unemployment rates to revert back to previous levels. Persistence is caused by: natural rate shocks, long unemployment cycles, and spill-over from cyclical to permanent unemployment. We find evidence of high persistence. The results suggest that the quick rise of unemployment rates during 1992-1994 was caused by large permanent and cyclical shocks in combination with spill-over effects. In the second essay, The Equilibrium Rate of Unemployment in a Small Open Economy, we challenge the common and simplifying assumption that the economy is closed. We set up and estimate a structural unobserved components open economy model for the unemployment rate and the real exchange rate. Our estimates indicate that the foreign sector is of substantial importance when explaining movements in the NAIRU. In the third essay, A Simultaneous Model of the Swedish Krona, the US Dollar and the Euro, we simultaneously estimate the real exchange rates between the Swedish Krona, the US Dollar and the Euro. The exchange rate movements are well explained by potential output, the output gap, terms of trade, the fraction of prime-aged people in the population, and structural government budget deficits. The models work well in an out of sample exercise. In the last essay, Wages, Employment, and Unemployment: The Effect of Benefits, Taxes and Labor Mobility, we study how wages and employment are affected by unemployment insurance and labor mobility. We show that the wage effect of higher unemployment benefits can be either positive or negative, depending on the specification of union utility function and the taxation scheme for financing the benefits. The common claim that wages are lower when a sector bears a higher fraction of unemployment costs does not hold in general. We also show that labor mobility across sectors and increased competition reduces wages and unemployment.
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| 4. |
- Meyersson, Erik, 1979-
(författare)
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Religion, Politics, and Development : Essays in Development Economics and Political Economics
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three essays in development and political economics."Islamic Rule and the Emancipation of the Poor and Pious". I report new findings on the causal relationship between political Islamic control and female participation in public institutions. Using a regression discontinuity design among Turkish municipalities I show that local Islamic control increased female participation in secular education more than secular control did. One mechanism for this is increased investment by religious organizations, tailoring facilities towards the poor and pious."Islam and Long-Run Development". I show new cross-country evidence on the long-run impact of Islam on economic development. Using the proximity to Mecca as an instrument for the Muslim share of a country's population, I show that Islam has had a reducing long-run impact on income per capita, as well as lower female participation in public institutions. But it has also had a positive impact on several measures of female health outcomes. This emphasizes the link between lower incomes and lower female participation in public institutions, over one where Islamic influence has adverse health outcomes."The Rise of China and the Natural Resource Curse in Africa". In examining the economic and political consequences of Africa’s increased reliance on selling oil to China, our empirical strategy uses exogenous variation based on China's economic rise and consequent demand for oil in interaction with the pre-existence of oil in Sub-Saharan Africa. Results show that selling oil to China is unique in having large positive growth effects while not having detrimental consequences for institutions or human rights abuses. In the case of Africa, the Chinese oil trade has served as a crucial injection in a region where growth has been chronically low, without causing detrimental consequences for political development.
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| 5. |
- von Below, David, 1979-
(författare)
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Essays in Climate and Labour Economics
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays in climate and labour economics.Uncertainty, Climate Change and the Global EconomyUsing a modified version of the RICE model of the global economy and climate, we explore the uncertainty about various natural and socio-economic processes, and how this feeds through to uncertainty about climatic and economic outcomes. Under a Business-As-Usual scenario, the median increase of global mean temperature in 2105 will be around 5.0 °C. The 99-percent confidence interval ranges from 3.4 to 7.3 °C. Uncertainty about socio-economic drivers lie behind a non-trivial part of this uncertainty about global warming.Temperature Feedbacks to the Carbon Cycle in Climate–Economy ModelsThere is great uncertainty about how much of future CO2 emissions will be absorbed by the biosphere, due in part to uncertainty about climate sensitivity. Several well-known climate-economy models do not take this effect into account. We extend the carbon cycle component of the DICE model such that carbon flows between atmosphere and biosphere are made temperature dependent. Our results suggest that the baseline DICE model understates atmospheric CO2, particularly after fossil fuels have been phased out.Optimal Carbon Taxes With Social and Private DiscountingAn analytically tractable climate-economy model is extended to allow for a social planner that discounts the future differently than private agents. If a planner discounts the future at a different rate than private agents, the laissez-faire and the socially optimal rate of fossil-fuel depletion differ substantially. This calls for optimal carbon taxes that fall over time, eventually turning into subsidies. Welfare losses in the event that the first-best can not be implemented are substantially larger with differences in discount rates.Last In, First Out? Estimating the Effect of Seniority Rules in SwedenThe ‘last-in-first-out’ principle in Sweden was reformed in January 2001 such that employers with ten or fewer employees were allowed to exempt two workers from the seniority rule. We find that both hires and separations increased in small firms relative to large firms by 5 percent. This also implies that there were no effects on firms’ net employment. Our results show that firms reacted to changes in the seniority rules, but the effects are not overwhelmingly large.
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