Has EU Enlargement Been, and Will It Continue to Be, a Success? An Evaluation of EU Enlargement's Effects on Policies Pursued by Candidate Countries

In this paper, I discuss whether enlargement has been a successful external policy of the European Union (EU). In particular, I evaluate the policy’s success based on its effects on the policies candidate countries have pursued. I argue that the prospect of entering the European Union has promoted beneficial democratic, economic and social reforms in candidate countries, and therefore can be judged to have been a success. I focus on two sets of enlargement rounds where the potential for the EU’s influence on candidate countries’ policies was greatest: the 1980s rounds, during which Spain, Portugal and Greece – three countries with then-recent histories of dictatorship – were admitted; and the 2004/2007 rounds, during which twelve new Member States acceded, mostly from the post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. I conclude that enlargement has, indeed, been a success: The prospect of entering the European Union (EU) has prompted candidate countries to pursue political, economic and social reforms that have contributed to the consolidation of democracy, to improvements in their human rights records, as well as to the betterment of their market economies. Finally, I discuss whether the enlargement process is likely to continue to be successful in improving the candidate countries’ policies, both in the Western Balkans (the likely next focus of EU enlargement), but also in potential further expansions

Comment on Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor (2008): “Are voters sensitive to terrorism? Direct evidence from the Israeli electorate”

In “Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate,“ Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor analyze the causal effects of terrorist attacks on the political preferences of the Israeli electorate. In this comment, I discuss Berrebi and Klor's empirical approach - especially their treatment of possible reverse causality between voters' preferences and the occurrence of terrorist attacks - and make suggestions for improvement.terrorism; voter behavior; elections; electoral behavior; political economy; security policy

Has EU Enlargement Been, and Will It Continue to Be, a Success? An Evaluation of EU Enlargement's Effects on Policies Pursued by Candidate Countries

In this paper, I discuss whether enlargement has been a successful external policy of the European Union (EU). In particular, I evaluate the policy’s success based on its effects on the policies candidate countries have pursued. I argue that the prospect of entering the European Union has promoted beneficial democratic, economic and social reforms in candidate countries, and therefore can be judged to have been a success. I focus on two sets of enlargement rounds where the potential for the EU’s influence on candidate countries’ policies was greatest: the 1980s rounds, during which Spain, Portugal and Greece – three countries with then-recent histories of dictatorship – were admitted; and the 2004/2007 rounds, during which twelve new Member States acceded, mostly from the post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. I conclude that enlargement has, indeed, been a success: The prospect of entering the European Union (EU) has prompted candidate countries to pursue political, economic and social reforms that have contributed to the consolidation of democracy, to improvements in their human rights records, as well as to the betterment of their market economies. Finally, I discuss whether the enlargement process is likely to continue to be successful in improving the candidate countries’ policies, both in the Western Balkans (the likely next focus of EU enlargement), but also in potential further expansions.enlargement, European Union, democratization, economic reform, human rights, democratic consolidation, social reform, Regional Integration, International Organization, Multilevel Governance, Supranational Institutions

Determinants of Multilateral Official Development Assistance: Evidence from a Panel Study of Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are some of the poorest and least developed in the world, with deplorable health and education levels. One way intended to promote better living standards in this region has been through development aid. This study examines the determinants of multilateral aid inflows to sub-Saharan Africa to determine whether it is directed to the least developed countries. I use panel data about 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1995-2004 period to estimate a regression model in which I treat multilateral aid inflows as a proportion of GDP as the dependent variable, and proxies for health levels, education and institutional quality as explanatory variables. My analysis yields some evidence, especially in panel regressions with time-fixed effects, in support of the hypothesis that countries with poorer health and education levels receive more multilateral aid as a proportion of their gross domestic products. The corruption level, as measured by the International Country Risk Guide, however, appears to be an unimportant factor in the allocation of multilateral ODA.foreign aid; health; education; development economics; sub-Saharan Africa

A Very Uneven Road: US Labor Markets in the Past 30 Years

Compares wages, employment, and earnings during the 1979-82, 1989-92, 2000-03, and 2007-10 economic peaks and recessions by gender, education, region, and sector. Examines variations, patterns, and structural changes and projects a gradual recovery

ExtremeBounds: Extreme Bounds Analysis in R

This article introduces the R package ExtremeBounds to perform extreme bounds analysis (EBA), a sensitivity test that examines how robustly the dependent variable of a regression model is related to a variety of possible determinants. ExtremeBounds supports Leamer's EBA that focuses on the upper and lower extreme bounds of regression coefficients, as well as Sala-i-Martin's EBA which considers their entire distribution. In contrast to existing alternatives, it can estimate models of a variety of user-defined sizes, use regression models other than ordinary least squares, incorporate non-linearities in the model specification, and apply custom weights and standard errors. To alleviate concerns about the multicollinearity and conceptual overlap of examined variables, ExtremeBounds allows users to specify sets of mutually exclusive variables, and can restrict the analysis to coefficients from regression models that yield a variance inflation factor within a prespecified limit

TableMaker: An Excel Macro for Publication-Quality Tables

This article introduces TableMaker, a Microsoft Excel macro that produces publicationquality tables and includes them as new sheets in workbooks. The macro provides an intuitive graphical user interface that allows for the full customization of all table features. It also allows users to save and load table templates, and thus allows layouts to be both reproducible and transferable. It is distributed in a single computer file. As such, the macro is easy to share, as well as accessible to even beginning and casual users of Excel. Since it allows for the quick creation of reproducible and fully customizable tables, TableMaker can be very useful to academics, policy-makers and businesses by making the presentation and formatting of results faster and more efficient

Fundamental Tax Reform: The Growth and Utility Effects of a Revenue-Neutral Flat Tax

We estimate the growth and utility effects of switching from a graduated-rate federal income tax to a flat tax along the lines of Hall-Rabushka (1995). We, furthermore, calculate the post-reform transition dynamics for a number of variables, including the economic growth rate, the representative household’s utility – using consumption equivalents as suggested by Lucas (2003) – , the allocation of time to education and market work, as well as the interest and wage rates. To achieve these goals, we rely on a dynamic equilibrium model proposed by Cassou and Lansing (2003), and calibrated to fit historical data about the U.S. economy and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax return statistics for the 2005 tax year. In the process, we specify a step-by-step calibration procedure for the model – a non-trivial undertaking left largely unexplained in Cassou and Lansing (2003). We find that the flat tax reform increases long-term economic growth, and that the magnitude of this effect depends on the U.S. economy’s intertemporal elasticity of substitution in labor supply (IES). For values of IES that range from 0.25 to 1, the introduction of a Hall-Rabushka flat tax increases the long-term economic growth rate by 0.003 - 0.255 percentage points. Although the flat tax reform has clear benefits in the long run, we find that it decreases economic growth during the first post-reform year, and lowers utility for several years after its implementation. Politicians concerned about their re-election prospects may, as a result, be inclined to carefully consider the political consequences of the flat tax reform in the timing of its adoption.tax; flat tax; public finance; economic growth; tax reform

Comment on Benjamin Smith (2004): “Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960-1999”

In “Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960-1999“ Benjamin Smith examines the effects of oil wealth, as well as of sudden changes in oil prices, on regime failure, political protest and civil war. He finds that oil wealth is robustly associated with more durable regimes, and significantly related to lower levels of anti-state protest and civil war. In this comment, I discuss Smith's empirical approach - especially his treatment of possible reverse causality between conflict and economic performance, his use of the Polity democracy index, and his choice of the resource dependence variable - and provide suggestions for improvement.oil wealth; regime survival; political economy; democracy; natural resource curse

Has EU Enlargement Been, and Will It Continue to Be, a Success? An Evaluation of EU Enlargement's Effects on Policies Pursued by Candidate Countries

In this paper, I discuss whether enlargement has been a successful external policy of the European Union (EU). In particular, I evaluate the policy’s success based on its effects on the policies candidate countries have pursued. I argue that the prospect of entering the European Union has promoted beneficial democratic, economic and social reforms in candidate countries, and therefore can be judged to have been a success. I focus on two sets of enlargement rounds where the potential for the EU’s influence on candidate countries’ policies was greatest: the 1980s rounds, during which Spain, Portugal and Greece – three countries with then-recent histories of dictatorship – were admitted; and the 2004/2007 rounds, during which twelve new Member States acceded, mostly from the post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. I conclude that enlargement has, indeed, been a success: The prospect of entering the European Union (EU) has prompted candidate countries to pursue political, economic and social reforms that have contributed to the consolidation of democracy, to improvements in their human rights records, as well as to the betterment of their market economies. Finally, I discuss whether the enlargement process is likely to continue to be successful in improving the candidate countries’ policies, both in the Western Balkans (the likely next focus of EU enlargement), but also in potential further expansions