Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010

While conventional wisdom assumes that inclement weather on election day reduces voter turnout, there is remarkably little evidence available to support truth to such belief. This paper examines the effects of temperature, sunshine duration and rainfall on voter turnout in 13 Dutch national parliament elections held from 1971 to 2010. It merges the election results from over 400 municipalities with election-day weather data drawn from the nearest weather station. We find that the weather parameters indeed affect voter turnout. Election-day rainfall of roughly 25 mm (1 inch) reduces turnout by a rate of one percent, whereas a 10-degree-Celsius increase in temperature correlates with an increase of almost one percent in overall turnout. One hundred percent sunshine corresponds to a one and a half percent greater voter turnout compared to zero sunshine

Economic growth, law, and corruption: evidence from India

Is corruption influenced by economic growth? Are legal institutions such as the ‘Right to Information Act (RTI) 2005’ in India effective in curbing corruption? Using a panel dataset covering 20 Indian states for the years 2005 and 2008 we estimate the effects of growth and law on corruption. Accounting for endogeneity, omitted fixed factors, and other nationwide changes we find that economic growth reduces overall corruption as well as corruption in banking, land administration, education, electricity, and hospitals. Growth reduces bribes but has little impact on corruption perception. In contrast the RTI Act reduces both corruption experience and corruption perceptio

Social networks and labour productivity in Europe: An empirical investigation

This paper uses firm-level data recorded in the AMADEUS database to investigate the distribution of labour productivity in different European countries. We find that the upper tail of the empirical productivity distributions follows a decaying power-law, whose exponent $\alpha$ is obtained by a semi-parametric estimation technique recently developed by Clementi et al. (2006). The emergence of "fat tails" in productivity distribution has already been detected in Di Matteo et al. (2005) and explained by means of a model of social network. Here we show that this model is tested on a broader sample of countries having different patterns of social network structure. These different social attitudes, measured using a social capital indicator, reflect in the power-law exponent estimates, verifying in this way the existence of linkages among firms' productivity performance and social network.Comment: LaTeX2e; 18 pages with 3 figures; Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, in pres

Women and Illegal Activities: Gender Differences and Women's Willingness to Comply Over Time

In recent years the topics of illegal activities such as corruption or tax evasion have attracted a great deal of attention. However, there is still a lack of substantial empirical evidence about the determinants of compliance. The aim of this paper is to investigate empirically whether women are more willing to be compliant than men and whether we observe (among women and in general) differences in attitudes among similar age groups in different time periods (cohort effect) or changing attitudes of the same cohorts over time (age effect) using data from eight Western European countries from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey that span the period from 1981 to 1999. The results reveal higher willingness to comply among women and an age rather than a cohort effect. Working Paper 06-5

Building social capital through breastfeeding peer support: Insights from an evaluation of a voluntary breastfeeding peer support service in North-West England

Background: Peer support is reported to be a key method to help build social capital in communities. To date there are no studies that describe how this can be achieved through a breastfeeding peer support service. In this paper we present findings from an evaluation of a voluntary model of breastfeeding peer support in North-West England to describe how the service was operationalized and embedded into the community. This study was undertaken from May, 2012 to May, 2013. Methods: Interviews (group or individual) were held with 87 participants: 24 breastfeeding women, 13 peer supporters and 50 health and community professionals. The data contained within 23 monthly monitoring reports (January, 2011 to February 2013) compiled by the voluntary peer support service were also extracted and analysed. Results: Thematic analysis was undertaken using social capital concepts as a theoretical lens. Key findings were identified to resonate with ’bonding’, ‘bridging’ and ‘linking’ forms of social capital. These insights illuminate how the peer support service facilitates ‘bonds’ with its members, and within and between women who access the service; how the service ‘bridges’ with individuals from different interests and backgrounds, and how ‘links’ were forged with those in authority to gain access and reach to women and to promote a breastfeeding culture. Some of the tensions highlighted within the social capital literature were also identified. Conclusions: Horizontal and vertical relationships forged between the peer support service and community members enabled peer support to be embedded into care pathways, helped to promote positive attitudes to breastfeeding and to disseminate knowledge and maximise reach for breastfeeding support across the community. Further effort to engage with those of different ethnic backgrounds and to resolve tensions between peer supporters and health professionals is warranted

Do Doctors Vote?

BACKGROUND: Organizational leaders and scholars have issued calls for the medical profession to refocus its efforts on fulfilling the core tenets of professionalism. A key element of professionalism is participation in community affairs. OBJECTIVE: To measure physician voting rates as an indicator of civic participation. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of a subgroup of physicians from a nationally representative household survey of civilian, noninstitutionalized adult citizens. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 350,870 participants in the Current Population Survey (CPS) November Voter Supplement from 1996–2002, including 1,274 physicians and 1,886 lawyers; 414,989 participants in the CPS survey from 1976–1982, including 2,033 health professionals. MEASUREMENTS: Multivariate logistic regression models were used to compare adjusted physician voting rates in the 1996–2002 congressional and presidential elections with those of lawyers and the general population and to compare voting rates of health professionals in 1996–2002 with those in 1976–1992. RESULTS: After multivariate adjustment for characteristics known to be associated with voting rates, physicians were less likely to vote than the general population in 1998 (odds ratio 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59–0.99), 2000 (odds ratio 0.64; 95% CI 0.44–0.93), and 2002 (odds ratio 0.62; 95% CI 0.48–0.80) but not 1996 (odds ratio 0.83; 95% CI 0.59–1.17). Lawyers voted at higher rates than the general population and doctors in all four elections (P < .001). The pooled adjusted odds ratio for physician voting across the four elections was 0.70 (CI 0.61–0.81). No substantial changes in voting rates for health professionals were observed between 1976–1982 and 1996–2002. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians have lower adjusted voting rates than lawyers and the general population, suggesting reduced civic participation

Warfare, Fiscal Capacity, and Performance

We exploit differences in casualties sustained in pre-modern wars to estimate the impact of fiscal capacity on economic performance. In the past, states fought different amounts of external conflicts, of various lengths and magnitudes. To raise the revenues to wage wars, states made fiscal innovations, which persisted and helped to shape current fiscal institutions. Economic historians claim that greater fiscal capacity was the key long-run institutional change brought about by historical conflicts. Using casualties sustained in pre-modern wars to instrument for current fiscal institutions, we estimate substantial impacts of fiscal capacity on GDP per worker. The results are robust to a broad range of specifications, controls, and sub-samples