Income, Income Inequality and the “Hidden Epidemic” of Traffic Fatalities

Few, if any, epidemics responsible for 20 million severe injuries and/or deaths each year, globally, receive less public attention than do traffic accidents truly making them a “hidden epidemic”. Worse yet, the epidemic is growing as evidenced by World Health Organization data which show deaths from traffic accidents increasing by 20 percent between 1990 and 2002. In this paper we examine how a country’s stage of development and its distribution of income affect its traffic fatality rate. In our theoretical analysis, we show that traffic fatalities should have a nonlinear relationship with a country’s level of per capita income while being a decreasing function of income equality. We test our model’s predictions by evaluating data from 79 countries between 1970 and 2000, taking into account other factors that influence traffic fatalities like the motorization rate, health care networks, education, and alcohol consumption and find strong evidence of the theoretical model’s predictions. Specifically, the empirical results indicate that traffic fatalities are negatively related to income equality throughout its range and also are negatively related to per capita income, above a threshold of about $11,500.Vulnerable road users, traffic safety interventions, per capita income, income inequality

Collective (In)Action and Corruption: Access to Improved Water and Sanitation

A country’s levels of collective action in the provision of socially desirable goods and services are primarily determined by its level of development, important natural attributes, and its unique institutional characteristics. In general, one can expect that, given a particular set of natural attributes and institutions, the greater a county’s per capita GDP, the more extensive will be its commitment to the provision of goods and services that require collective action. The primary contention of this paper is that one of the most important aspects of institutions that affect socially desirable collective action is the extent of public sector corruption. More specifically, we first develop a theoretical model which explicitly shows the relations between per capita GDP, corruption, and collective action in the form of the provision of improved drinking water and appropriate sanitation facilities. We test our model by analyzing a sample of 77 countries, annually, between 1982 and 2001, for a total sample of 1,519 observations. Relying on a two-way fixed effects estimation strategy, we find that corruption does in fact lead to lower levels of both access to improved drinking water and appropriate sanitation than a given country’s level of per capita GDP and other institutions alone would predict.Collective Action, corruption, institutional variables

From Cholera Outbreaks to Pandemics: The Role of Poverty and Inequality

Cholera and other diarrheal diseases are the second leading cause of death among the poor globally. The tragedy of this statistic is that it need not be the case. Unlike many afflictions, the impact of cholera can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated, through the collective action of clean water services. This begs the question of why such collective action is absent in much of the world. To address this, we first develop a theoretical model which indicates that the required collective action is an increasing function of both a country’s level of income and income equality. We test these predictions by analyzing 1,032 annual observations arising from 17 relatively poor countries between the years 1980 and 2002. The countries come from the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In the first part of the analysis, we find that the collective action of providing clean water is, as predicted, an increasing function of income and equality. Following this, we find that both the numbers of cases and deaths resulting from a given cholera outbreak are strongly and negatively related to the collective action.Cholera, diarrheal diseases, pandemics, per capita income, inequality

Earthquake fatalities: the interaction of nature and political economy

In our theoretical model, we show that as per capita income decreases and the level of inequality increases, different segments of society are less likely to agree on the distribution of the burden of the necessary collective action, causing the relatively-wealthy simply to self-insure against the disaster while leaving the relatively-poor to its mercy. We then evaluate 269 large earthquakes occurring worldwide (1960-2002), taking into account other factors such as an earthquake's magnitude, depth and proximity to population centers. Using a Negative Binomial estimation strategy with both random and fixed estimators, we find strong evidence of the theoretical model’s predictions.Earthquake, Fatalities, Nature, Political economy

Corruption and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the US States

The literature on voter turnout focuses on the determinants of the electorate’s vote supply. There is growing recognition, however, that the demanders of votes—candidates, political parties, and interest groups—have strong incentives to invest resources in mobilizing support on Election Day. The authors test the hypothesis that corruption rents increase the value of holding public office and, hence, elicit greater demand-side effort in building winning coalitions. Analyzing a pooled time-series data set of public officials convicted of misusing their offices between 1979 and 2005, we find, after controlling for other influential factors, that governmental corruption raises voter turnout rates in gubernatorial elections

Natural Disasters and Entrepreneurship Activity: the Moderating Role of Country Governance

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a country’s quality of governance moderates the effect of natural disasters on start-up activity within that country. We test our hypotheses using a panel of 95 countries from 2006 to 2016. Our findings suggest that natural disasters discourage start-up activity in countries that have low-quality governance but encourage start-up activity in countries that have high-quality governance. Moreover, our estimates reveal that natural disasters’ effects on start-up activity persist for the short term (1–3 years) but not the long term. Our findings provide new insights into how natural disasters affect entrepreneurship activity and highlight the importance of country governance during these events

Corruption and Voter Participation: Evidence from the U.S. States

Abstract: The literature on voter turnout focuses on the determinants of the electorate's vote supply. There is growing recognition, however, that the demanders of votes -candidates, political parties and interest groups -have strong incentives to invest resources in mobilizing support on Election Day. We test the hypothesis that corruption rents increase the value of holding public office and, hence, elicit greater demand-side effort in building winning coalitions. Analyzing a panel dataset of public officials convicted of misusing their offices between 1977 and 2005, we find, after controlling for other influential factors, that governmental corruption raises voter turnout rates in gubernatorial elections. JEL Classifications: D72, K4, H

Essays on the determinants of private investment: The effects of relative price uncertainty and political instability

The objective of this study was to provide empirical evidence on the effects of relative price uncertainty and political instability on private investment. My effort is expressed in a single-equation model using macroeconomic and socio-political data from eight Latin American countries for the period 1970–1996. Relative price uncertainty is measured by the implied volatility of the exchange rate and political instability is measured by using indicators of social unrest and political violence. I found that, after controlling for other variables, relative price uncertainty and political instability are negatively associated with private investment. Macroeconomic and political stability are key ingredients for the achievement of a strong investment response. This highlights the need to develop the state and build a civil society in which citizens can participate in decision-making and express consent without generating social turmoil. At the same time the government needs to implement structural policies along with relative price adjustments to eliminate excess volatility in price movements in order to provide a stable environment for investment

Fiscal decentralization and natural hazard risks

Governmental decentralization, Management of natural hazard risks, H11, H41, H73, H77, Q54,

Ethnic tensions and social infrastructure

Ethnic tensions may restrict economic growth through a number of infrastructure channels. We extend this literature by (1) using a broad measure of ethnic tensions, (2) considering a variety of measures of social infrastructure for a panel of 87 countries across 16 years and (3) explicitly addressing the endogeneity of ethnic tensions. We find ethnic tensions significantly retard the formation of social infrastructure and, by extension, impose an unnecessary cap on growth and development. As such, governments would well-serve the interests of their populaces by enacting policies, conducting politics and carrying out their daily functions in ways that serve to dampen ethnic tensions, rather than the reverse, which too often seems the case.