79 research outputs found
De Facto Judicial Independence and Physical Integrity Rights
Economists, political scientists, and legal scholars have argued that independent judiciaries have an important role to play in promoting economic development and protecting property rights. We argue that judicial independence can also have a positive impact on the protection of human rights. To assess the human rights impact of a de facto independent judiciary, we also argue that scholars must account for the potential of endogeneity between judicial independence and protection of human rights. We examine whether greater de facto independence improves government respect for citizensâ physical integrity rights, using a comprehensive dataset of 193 countries from 1981 to 2010. Employing an instrumental variables approach to control for endogeneity, we find strong support for the argument that greater levels of de facto judicial independence improve government respect for physical integrity rights. These findings are robust to changes in measurement, estimation techniques, and model specification. Failing to account for endogeneity will tend to overemphasize the ability of completely independent courts to improve government respect for physical integrity rights
War and infant mortality rates
War represents one of the gravest threats to the right to health. A range of international human rights covenants have enumerated the rights of both adults and children to lead full healthy lives, free from the dangers of war. Yet we know remarkably little about how war systematically affects childrenâs rights to health. We have limited knowledge about if different types of conflictâmajor interstate and major civil warsâhave similar or different consequences for childrenâs health. This article examines the immediate and cumulative links of major interstate and major civil wars with infant mortality rates, a key measure of childrenâs health. The article employs generalized least squares regression with two-way fixed effects over the 1950â2007 period. The core results indicate that major civil and major interstate wars substantively violate childrenâs and infantsâ rights to health. States that spent the most amount of time involved in major interstate wars were associated with the worst overall increases in infant mortality rates
Economic Development and the World Bank
We contribute to the research stream examining the effects of World Bank lending programs on economic growth in developing economies. We contend that it is important to distinguish between the short-term effects and extended exposure of countries to these lending programs and also to assess the Bankâs (late 1990s) reforms to improve the effectiveness of these programs in recipient countries to assess whether program lending has any positive impacts on economic growth. Our comparative cross-national findings using instrumental variables analysis to control for endogeneity between program participation and economic growth demonstrate that both the short-term and longer exposure to program lending worsens economic growth. We find no evidence that World Bank reforms improved economic growth rates in the post-reform (1999â2009) period. Our findings are robust to changes in model specifications and estimation techniques. Future research should examine whether these reforms had beneficial impacts in other societal areas affected by program lending
Rousseau, David L. Democracy and War: Institutions, Norms, and the Evolution of International Conflict. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005
A new dataset on infant mortality rates, 1816-2002
Systematic data on annual infant mortality rates are of use to a variety of social science research programs in demography, economics, sociology, and political science. Infant mortality rates may be used both as a proxy measure for economic development, in lieu of energy consumption or GDP-per-capita measures, and as an indicator of the extent to which governments provide for the economic and social welfare of their citizens. Until recently, data were available for only a limited number of countries based on regional or country-level studies and time periods for years after 1950. Here, the authors introduce a new dataset reporting annual infant mortality rates for all states in the world, based on the Correlates of War state system list, between 1816 and 2002. They discuss past research programs using infant mortality rates in conflict studies and describe the dataset by exploring its geographic and temporal coverage. Next, they explain some of the limitations of the dataset as well as issues associated with the data themselves. Finally, they suggest some research areas that might benefit from the use of this dataset. This new dataset is the most comprehensive source on infant mortality rates currently available to social science researchers
IMF Lending: Partisanship, Punishment, and Protest
This Element argues that governments allocate adjustment burdens strategically to protect their supporters, imposing adjustment costs upon the supporters of their opponents, who then protest in response. Using large-N micro-level survey data from three world regions and a global survey, it discusses the local political economy of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending. It finds that opposition supporters in countries under IMF structural adjustment programs (SAP) are more likely to report that the IMF SAP increased economic hardships than government supporters and countries without IMF exposure. In addition, it finds that partisan gaps in IMF SAP evaluations widen in IMF program countries with an above-median number of conditions, suggesting that opposition supporters face heavier adjustment burdens, and that opposition supporters who think SAPs made their lives worse are more likely to protest
Economic Development and the World Bank
We contribute to the research stream examining the effects of World Bank lending programs on economic growth in developing economies. We contend that it is important to distinguish between the short-term effects and extended exposure of countries to these lending programs and also to assess the Bank’s (late 1990s) reforms to improve the effectiveness of these programs in recipient countries to assess whether program lending has any positive impacts on economic growth. Our comparative cross-national findings using instrumental variables analysis to control for endogeneity between program participation and economic growth demonstrate that both the short-term and longer exposure to program lending worsens economic growth. We find no evidence that World Bank reforms improved economic growth rates in the post-reform (1999−2009) period. Our findings are robust to changes in model specifications and estimation techniques. Future research should examine whether these reforms had beneficial impacts in other societal areas affected by program lending
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