1,098 research outputs found

    2023-2024 Catalog

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    The 2023-2024 Governors State University Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog is a comprehensive listing of current information regarding:Degree RequirementsCourse OfferingsUndergraduate and Graduate Rules and Regulation

    The Individual And Their World

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    Extreme Points of First-Order Stochastic Dominance Intervals: Theory and Applications

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    We characterize the extreme points of first-order stochastic dominance (FOSD) intervals and show how these intervals are at the heart of many topics in economics. Using knowledge of these extreme points, we characterize the distributions of posterior quantiles under a given prior, leading to an analogue of a classical result regarding the distribution of posterior means. We apply this analogue to various economic subjects, including the psychology of judgement, political economy, and Bayesian persuasion. In addition, FOSD intervals provide a common structure to security design. We use the extreme points to unify and generalize seminal results in that literature when either adverse selection or moral hazard pertains

    Economic Inequality and Political Power in Norway

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    Så lenge demokratiske styreformer har eksistert har folk diskutert om økonomisk ulikhet undergraver det demokratiske idealet om politisk likhet. Har borgere med vidt forskjellige økonomiske ressurser i virkeligheten lik innflytelse på myndighetene? Tidligere forskning fra USA og Europa tyder på at svaret er nei: velstående borgere ser ut til å ha betydelig mer politisk innflytelse enn gjennomsnittsborgeren og de fattige. I denne avhandlingen studerer jeg forholdet mellom økonomisk ulikhet og politisk makt i Norge. Norge er interessant i denne forbindelse fordi det regnes som et av de mest velfungerende demokratiene i verden. I tillegg, sammenlignet med andre land, har Norge lave nivåer av økonomisk ulikhet, sterke fagforeninger og viktige institusjoner som begrenser innflytelsen til økonomiske eliter. Hvis det er mulig i et moderne kapitalistisk samfunn for rik og fattig å ha mer eller mindre lik innflytelse på myndighetene, så er Norge et av stedene vi burde observere dette. Avhandlingen består av de følgende tre artiklene: I Artikkel 1 (Velstand og innflytelse i et sosialdemokrati) bruker jeg et originalt datasett om opinion og offentlig politikk som inneholder 603 spesifikke saker i norsk politikk over fem tiår (1966-2014). Jeg viser at offentlig politikk i Norge generelt har respondert mye sterkere på preferansene til borgere med høy inntekt, enn preferansene til borgere med gjennomsnittlig eller lav inntekt. Likevel ser ikke de velstående i Norge ut til å nyte den eksklusive politiske innflytelsen som lignende studier har funnet i USA (f.eks. Gilens 2012). Dette er fordi i Norge ser utdanning ut til å være en viktigere faktor enn inntekt, og fordi de fattige ser ut til å ha hatt innflytelse i økonomiske saker, sammenlignbar i størrelsesorden med de velstående. Artikkel 2 (Hvordan skattlegge de rike: Folkeopinion vs. offentlig politikk) viser at selv om økonomisk politikk har vært relativt lydhør overfor både velstående og fattige, kan folkeopinion og offentlig politikk fortsatt bli alvorlig løsrevet fra hverandre på et spørsmål av høy relevans for de rike – nemlig høyinntektsbeskatning. I en original spørreundersøkelse ba jeg nordmenn utforme sin foretrukne skattestruktur, og matchet deretter svarene deres med registerdata om hva personer med ulike inntekter faktisk betaler i skatt. Jeg viser at innenfor den øverste 1 prosenten er faktiske skattesatser langt lavere (hele 23 prosentpoeng) fra der innbyggerne ønsker at de skal være. En oppfølgingsstudie viste at denne divergensen i sin helhet er drevet av at kapitalinntekter er skattlagt lavere enn hva opinionen ønsker. Artikkel 3 (Kjønn, økonomisk ulikhet og politisk makt) viser at ulik politisk responsivitet til økonomiske grupper kan resultere i ulik responsivitet til menn og kvinner. Dette er fordi kvinner utgjør en større del av lavinntektsgrupper enn menn, og fordi økonomiske eliter består i overveiende grad av menn. Jeg kombinerer datasettet brukt i Artikkel 1 med sammenlignbare data for USA fra Gilens (2012). Jeg dokumenterer deretter et stort gap i politisk responsivitet mellom menn og kvinner i både Norge og USA de siste 50 årene. En del av gapet skyldes økonomisk ulikhet mellom kjønnene, og fattige kvinner ser ut til å ha spesielt lite innflytelse. I Norge har imidlertid kjønnsforskjellen nærmest forsvunnet over tid, en utvikling som kan tilskrives den økende kvinneandelen i Stortinget. I USA derimot, har gapet holdt seg bemerkelsesverdig stabilt over tid.For as long as democratic forms of government have existed, people have discussed whether economic inequality undermines the democratic ideal of political equality. Do citizens with vastly different economic resources really have more or less the same level of influence on government? Previous research from the United States and Europe suggests that the answer is no: affluent citizens appear to enjoy considerably more policy influence than the average citizen and the poor. In this thesis, I study the relationship between economic inequality and political power in Norway. Norway is interesting in this regard because it is widely considered one of the most well-functioning democracies in the world. Furthermore, compared to other countries, Norway has low levels of economic inequality, strong unions, and important institutions limiting the influence of economic elites. If its possible, within a modern capitalist society, for rich and poor to have more or less equal influence on government, then Norway would be one of the places where we should observe it. The thesis consists of the following three articles: In Article 1 (Affluence and influence in a social democracy) I use an original dataset on public opinion and public policy containing 603 specific issues over five decades (1966- 2014). I show that public policy in Norway in general has responded much more strongly to the preferences of high-income citizens than to the preferences of citizens with average or low income. Still, the affluent in Norway do not appear to enjoy the exclusive political influence that similar studies have found in the United States (e.g. Gilens 2012). This is because education appears to be a more important determinant than income, and because the poor seem to have had sway on economic policy issues, comparable in magnitude to that of the affluent. Article 2 (Taxing the 1 percent: Public Opinion vs. Public Policy) shows that despite the general pattern of economic policy being relatively equally responsive to affluent and poor, public opinion and public policy can still become seriously detached on an issue of high relevance to the rich—namely, high income taxation. In an original survey, I asked Norwegians to design their preferred tax rate structure, and subsequently matched their answers with registry data on what people at different incomes actually pay in tax. I show that within the top 1 percent, tax rates are far below (as much as 23 percentage points) from where citizens want them to be. A follow-up survey showed that this divergence is entirely driven by capital incomes being taxed too low compared to what public opinion prefers. Article 3 (Gender, Economic Inequality, and Political Power) shows that unequal responsiveness to economic groups can imply unequal responsiveness to men and women. This is because women make up a larger part of low-income groups, and economic elites predominantly consist of men. I combine the dataset used in Article 1 with comparable data for the United States from Gilens (2012). I then document a major gap in responsiveness between men and women in both Norway and the United States over the past 50 years. Part of the gap is accounted for by economic inequality between the genders, and poor women appear to be particularly powerless. In Norway, however, the gender-gap has virtually disappeared over time, a development that is statistically attributable to the increasing share of women in parliament. In the US on the other hand, the gap has remained remarkably stable over time.Doktorgradsavhandlin

    The political economy of redistribution and (in)efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean

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    Predominant views on the political economy of Latin America and the Caribbean tend to emphasize that elite domination helps to understand the high levels of inequality. The contemporary fiscal version of that assertion goes something like “the rich are powerful and they don't like taxes, hence we have little taxation and little redistribution.” That is a good approximation to the reality of some countries, but not of others. There are cases in the region where there are high levels of taxation and non-negligible redistributive efforts. But in some of those cases such redistribution comes hand in hand with macroeconomic imbalances, high inflation, low growth, as well as low-quality public policies. When redistributive efforts are short-sighted and attempted with inefficient public policies, fiscal imbalances lead to inflation and to frequent macroeconomic crises that reduce growth and thwart poverty reduction efforts. The argument of this paper is that there are various possible political configurations (including elite domination and populism among others) that lead to different economic and social outcomes (including the degree of redistribution and others). We postulate that each configuration of social outcomes emerges out of different political economy equilibria. Different countries in the region will be in different political economy equilibria, and hence will have different combinations of political economy syndromes and of socioeconomic outcomes. In this paper, we characterize the countries regarding the size of the public sector, how much fiscal redistribution there is, and how efficient this public action is. We summarize various strands of literature that attempt to explain some elements of that fiscal vector one at a time; and then attempt to provide a simple framework that might explain why different countries present different configurations of size, distributiveness, and efficiency

    The Citizen and the State: Evidence from Field Experiments

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    A systematic lack of state capacity is one of the biggest challenges faced by developing countries. One reason for low state capacity is that citizen-state interaction can be stuck in a bad cycle of low trust and low capacity. Such a stark citizen-state trust deficit can lead to poverty and instability. This necessitates an understanding of how the state functions and how policymakers can improve state functioning. This would strengthen citizens' trust in the state. To understand what policies improve public-service delivery and improve citizens' interaction with the state, we need careful evaluation of policy instruments to help us understand the relationship between policy and outcome. This contributes to good public governance by helping governments improve public policies that can lead to higher quality of public service provision and thus higher economic development. In light of this, this thesis aims to illuminate different aspects of state capacity and citizen-state interactions. How can we help improve state functioning? How can the state improve cooperation among citizens and with itself? In all chapters, I collect primary data in Pakistan which allows me to study these phenomena

    The central influencer theorem: spatial voting contests with endogenous coalition formation

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    We introduce a spatial voting contest without the ‘one person, one vote’ restriction. Players exert costly effort to influence the policy and the outcome is obtained through an adjustment function. Players are heterogeneous in terms of the position in the policy line, disutility function, and the effort cost. In equilibrium, two groups endogenously emerge: players in one group try to implement more leftist policy, while those in the other group try more rightist one. Since the larger group suffers a more severe free-riding problem, the equilibrium policy converges to the center only when the larger group has a cost advantage. We demonstrate how the location of the center (i.e., the steady-state point) can be either median, or a mean of all points, or a mean of the extreme points, depending on the convexities of the utility and cost functions. This reflects some well-known results as special cases. We extend the model to an infinite horizon setting and show that the median outcome can be reached only under certain conditions

    Decentralized revenue sharing from broadcasting sports

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    We study the problem of sharing the revenues from broadcasting sports leagues among participating clubs. First, we characterize the set of rules satisfying two basic axioms: anonymity and additivity. Then, we decentralize the problem by letting clubs vote for rules. No majority equilibrium exists when they are allowed to vote for any rule within the characterized set. However, if the set is restricted in a meaningful and plausible way (just replacing anonymity by equal treatment of equals), majority equilibrium does exist.Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Departamento de Economía, Métodos Cuantitativos e Historia Económic

    LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume

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    LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum
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