Legislative Malapportionment and the Politicization of Germany’s Intergovernmental Transfer System

Legislative bargaining theory suggests that fiscal transfers among member states of a federation are determined to a substantial degree by political bargaining powers. Malapportionment of the states' population in the legislature is claimed to lead to disproportionally higher benefits to overrepresented states. The present paper analyses empirically the distribution of fiscal transfers in Germany's intergovernmental transfer system over the period 1970-2002. It can be shown that overrepresented states in the upper house receive disproportionate shares of transfers, while malapportionment in the lower house does not seem to matter. We also find empirical evidence that overrepresentation became more important over time.legislative bargaining, overrepresentation, fiscal transfer system, Germany

OPTIONS OF FINANCING THE CAP – CONSEQUENCES FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF FARM PAYMENTS

The introduction of decoupled direct payments in the EU was a substantial change of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003. After decoupling direct payments from production, it has become evident, that distributional objectives are the major justification of farm payments. There are three facets: the distribution of payments among farmers within member states, the distribution of payments among member states, and the distribution of household incomes within member states. All of them will be affected if the volume and allocation of funds for the CAP will be changed in the new financial framework of the EU. The paper addresses the first distributional aspects. We provide an overview of the development of past and present research and findings on the distributional aspects of direct payments. We use the theory of federal fiscal relations to identify the policy agendas that should be handled at the EU level, at national levels, and at sub-national levels. We analyse how measures of concentration are affected if the criteria of direct payments are changed (e.g. a modified modulation scheme). This allows us to identify potential consequences after changing the way direct payments are distributed within EU member states. The summary of the paper discusses the distributional consequences of scenarios of the coming financial framework as far as agriculture is concerned.Direct Payments, Distribution, Common Agricultural Policy., Agricultural and Food Policy, Political Economy, Q18,

Social-Emotional-Learning and the Impact on Student Achievement

The purpose of this literature review is to gather evidence on the effect of implementing socialemotional- learning (SEL) in schools and the impact of SEL curriculum has on student achievement. Social emotional skills are essential skills people use to interact with others, manage and regulate their own emotions, make appropriate decisions, and address social circumstances. Teachers use SEL programs to directly and indirectly address social skills and social interactions in the classroom. This review of the research shares the outcomes of studies that highlight a variety of methods available to teach children social skills and the benefits of mastering those skills, including the long-term benefits from implementing SEL in the classroom and schools. The wide-spread financial commitment by schools for implementation of SEL programs indicates the benefits of the social emotional development of young children through their journey in school and in life. This literature review explores research about the growing topic of social emotional skills, the effect of social emotional skills on student achievement, research of social emotional learning (SEL) programs, the implementation and the effective strategies to teach social skills to all children, especially those come from a diverse background. Several researchers recognize a positive connection between a child\u27s social emotional skills and development and achievement in school

On the politicization of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Germany after unification

A recent decision of the German Constitutional Court requires political decision makers to revise the system of intergovernmental transfers in order to limit free bargaining among state and federal government officials. The present paper provides empirical support for the thesis that political discretion has become increasingly important in the transfer negotiations after Unification. We attempt to show why political influences gained weight relative to economic considerations in the determination of net gains. This politicization of the fiscal transfer system appears to be a consequence of the inability of policy makers to agree on a fundamental reform in the early 1990's.

Free to choose? Economic freedom, relative income, and life control perceptions

Recent research has shown that the degree to which people feel they are in control of their lives is an important correlate of individual happiness, where those who feel more in control are found to be systematically happier. In turn, the economic sources of perceived life control are only insignificantly established in the literature. The present paper employs individual data from the World Value Survey and European Values Study, covering the period from 1981 to 2013, to establish the macro-determinants of individual life control. We find that living in a country with high overall economic freedom is a major determinant of feeling in control of one’s own life. The effect is similar for individuals in high- and low-income countries, while the impact of democracy is negligible in both cases. Interacting relative income with economic freedom, we find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is by far the lower income groups that derive the biggest gain of perceived life control from living in a country with comparatively high economic freedom. In low-income countries, the effects of economic freedom on life control perceptions do not appear to be conditional on personal income levels

Reforming the public administration: the role of crisis and the power of bureaucracy

The need to balance austerity with growth policies has put government efficiency high on the economic policy agenda in Europe. Administrative reforms which boost the efficiency of the administration can alleviate the trade-off between consolidation and public service provision. Against such backdrop, this study explores the determinants of efficiency en- hancing public administration reforms for a panel of EU countries using a novel reform indicator. The findings support the political-economic reasoning: An economic and fiscal crisis is a potent catalyst for reforms, but a powerful bureaucracy effectively constrains the opportunities of a crisis to promote this particular type of reform. Furthermore, there is evidence for horizontal learning from other EU countries, and for vertical learning associated with a particular type of EU transfers

Politische Oekonomie des Foederalismus

Nicht zuletzt durch den fortschreitenden Prozeß der europäischen Integration hat das wissenschaftliche Interesse an der Zuordnung finanzpolitischer Kompetenzen auf gebietskörperschaftliche Entscheidungsträger zugenommen. Während die traditionelle Theorie des Fiskalföderalismus auf die kostenminimale Bereitstellung von Kollektivgütern mittels föderativer Strukturen abstellt, sieht die politische Ökonomik die Hauptfunktion eines föderativen Systems in der Begrenzung staatlicher Macht durch vertikale Gewaltenteilung. In dieser Arbeit werden die Argumentationslinien beider Ansätze ausführlich dargestellt und im Rahmen eines konstitutionell-ökonomischen Denkansatzes integriert