The Size and Composition of Government Expenditure

This paper tests several leading hypotheses on determinants of government expenditure. The purpose is to avoid omitted variables bias by testing the prominent theories in a comprehensive specification, to identify persistent puzzles for the current set of theories, and to explore those puzzles in greater depth by looking at the composition of government expenditure and the level of government at which it takes place as well as its magnitude. Using Global Financial Statistics data from the IMF covering over 100 countries from 1970-2000, I look at cross-sectional and inter-temporal variation in government expenditure and both individual categories of expenditure (such as defense, education, health care) and different levels of government (central, state, and local). Among other results, I find a new explanation for Wagner's Law, widespread evidence that preference heterogeneity leads to decentralization rather than outright decreases in expenditures, that a great deal of the expenditure associated with increased trade openness is not in categories that explicitly insure for risk, and evidence that both political access and income inequality affect the extent of social insurance.government expenditure, Wagner's Law

The Aging Population and the Size of the Welfare State: Is There a Puzzle?

Razin, Sadka, and Swagel (2002) unveil a puzzling fact: the welfare state appears to be shrinking even as the dependency ratio rises. While they formulate an elegant political economy model to explain the coexistence of an aging population and declining transfers, the resolution of the puzzle turns out to be much simpler. Labor tax rates and per capita transfers are negatively correlated with the dependency ratio in advanced economies only because this measure includes children as well as retirees. Both labor tax rates and per capita transfers in advanced economies are, in fact, historically positively correlated with the ratio of retirees to the working-age population and negatively correlated with the ratio of children to the working-age population. Increasing the number of retirees shifts preferences toward higher taxes and transfers by increasing the fraction of the population that receives transfers. In contrast, workers with more children prefer to spend more of their lifetime income while raising dependents, so they prefer smaller public pension systems. These results suggest that fiscal leakage from workers to retirees is not required to explain the broad trends in the transfer policies of advanced economies.dependency ratio, welfare state

The Information Content of Elections and Varieties of the Partisan Political Business Cycle

This event study uses economic forecasts and opinion polls to measure the response of expectations to election surprise. Use of forecast data complements older work on partisan cycles by allowing a tighter link between election and response thereby mitigating concerns of endogeneity and omitted variables. I fin that forecasters respond swiftly and significantly to election surprise. I further argue that the response ought to vary across countries with different institutional foundations. In support, I find that there exist three distinct patterns in forecasters' responses to partisan surprise corresponding to Hall and Soskice's three varieties of capitalism. In liberal market economies, forecasters expect the left to achieve jobless growth with virtually no cost to inflation. In Mediterranean market economies, forecasters expect the left to achieve deliver both higher output growth and lower unemployment but with higher inflation. And in coordinated market economies, forecasters expect the left to deliver lower growth, higher unemployment, and higher inflation.political business cycle, varieties of capitalism, forecast data, opinion polls

The vicious cycle: fundraising and perceived visibility in US presidential primaries

Scholars of presidential primaries have long posited a dynamic positive feedback loop between fundraising and electoral success. Yet existing work on both directions of this feedback remains inconclusive and is often explicitly cross-sectional, ignoring the dynamic aspect of the hypothesis. Pairing high-frequency FEC data on contributions and expenditures with Iowa Electronic Markets data on perceived probability of victory, we examine the bidirectional feedback between contributions and viability. We find robust, significant positive feedback in both directions. This might suggest multiple equilibria: a candidate initially anointed as the front-runner able to sustain such status solely by the fundraising advantage conferred despite possessing no advantage in quality. However, simulations suggest the feedback loop cannot, by itself, sustain advantage. Given the observed durability of front-runners, it would thus seem there is either some other feedback at work and/or the process by which the initial front-runner is identified is informative of candidate quality

Elections and Political Risk: New Evidence from Political Prediction Markets in Taiwan

We examine the effects of party platforms on the economic opportunities of firms using a unique data set from a political prediction market in Taiwan, a country with two dominant parties whose political cleavage derives mainly from a single issue: the “One China Principle”. We find that during the 2008 Presidential campaign, the share price of Taiwanese firms with investments in the mainland responded strongly and positively to a positive electoral outlook for the KMT, the party which advocates lifting caps on cross-strait investment in mainland China. The response is strongest for those firms who have already hit their caps.Partisan Effects, Taiwan

Book Review: Modeling the Composition of Government Expenditure

Throughout the developed world, public finances dominate headlines. Given the widespread unsustainability of budget plans and the bitter attrition of retrenchment, they are like to do so for the next decade or more. As they have long done, different polities are likely to make different choices for how to spend dwindling public moneys. Understanding the sources of past heterogeneity—why countries have differed in their public spending—is thus of interest as we enter an age of fiscal adjustment. Messieurs Creedy and Moslehi offer us a technical primer laying the groundwork for modeling efforts

The Vicious Cycle: Fundraising and Perceived Viability in U.S. Presidential Primaries

Scholars of presidential primaries have long posited a dynamic positive feedback loop between fundraising and electoral success. Yet existing work on both directions of this feedback remains inconclusive and is often explicitly cross-sectional, ignoring the dynamic aspect of the hypothesis. Pairing high-frequency FEC data on contributions and expenditures with Iowa Electronic Markets data on perceived probability of victory, we examine the bidirectional feedback between contributions and viability. We find robust, significant positive feedback in both directions. This might suggest multiple equilibria: a candidate initially anointed as the front-runner able to sustain such status solely by the fundraising advantage conferred despite possessing no advantage in quality. However, simulations suggest the feedback loop cannot, by itself, sustain advantage. Given the observed durability of front-runners, it would thus seem there is either some other feedback at work and/or the process by which the initial front-runner is identified is informative of candidate quality

Genome-Wide Association Analysis Identifies a Mutation in the Thiamine Transporter 2 (SLC19A3) Gene Associated with Alaskan Husky Encephalopathy

Alaskan Husky Encephalopathy (AHE) has been previously proposed as a mitochondrial encephalopathy based on neuropathological similarities with human Leigh Syndrome (LS). We studied 11 Alaskan Husky dogs with AHE, but found no abnormalities in respiratory chain enzyme activities in muscle and liver, or mutations in mitochondrial or nuclear genes that cause LS in people. A genome wide association study was performed using eight of the affected dogs and 20 related but unaffected control AHs using the Illumina canine HD array. SLC19A3 was identified as a positional candidate gene. This gene controls the uptake of thiamine in the CNS via expression of the thiamine transporter protein THTR2. Dogs have two copies of this gene located within the candidate interval (SLC19A3.2 – 43.36–43.38 Mb and SLC19A3.1 – 43.411–43.419 Mb) on chromosome 25. Expression analysis in a normal dog revealed that one of the paralogs, SLC19A3.1, was expressed in the brain and spinal cord while the other was not. Subsequent exon sequencing of SLC19A3.1 revealed a 4bp insertion and SNP in the second exon that is predicted to result in a functional protein truncation of 279 amino acids (c.624 insTTGC, c.625 C>A). All dogs with AHE were homozygous for this mutation, 15/41 healthy AH control dogs were heterozygous carriers while 26/41 normal healthy AH dogs were wild type. Furthermore, this mutation was not detected in another 187 dogs of different breeds. These results suggest that this mutation in SLC19A3.1, encoding a thiamine transporter protein, plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of AHE.University of California, Davis. School of Veterinary Medicine. Center for Companion Animal Healt

L’usage de la poésie haïku en psycho-oncologie

International audienceAbstract Aim: Our study aims to describe the discourseeffects of specific and structured protocol focused on severalhaiku poems about one patient, who have experienced cancer.Procedure: The protocol consists of 4 steps: a preliminaryexploratory interview, fifteen haiku proposed without a partof the poem (a creative writing filled in by the patient), a freeform haiku composed by the patient, and finally, a finalinterview.Clinical case: A man, D., aged 25, had tumor.Result: Using this protocol, we showed discourse variationson the illness before and after the experience of poetrywriting, by Tropes V8.4 software.Conclusion: Haiku poetry can be a useful tool in the contextof supportive interventions or as preparatory work for engagementin psychotherapeutic intervention. We believe thatthe formal structure of haikus can create conditions for aspecific poetic work composed of: poetic evocation, synthesis,and mapping of the most intimate experiences in oncologyenvironment.Résumé Objectif : Cette étude qualitative et exploratoirevise à décrire les effets d’un protocole poétique centré surles haïkus en psycho-oncologie sur l’approche de la maladiechez un patient atteint de cancer.Matériel et méthodes : Il s’agit d’un protocole d’écriturepoétique composé de quatre étapes : un entretien préliminaire,la proposition de 15 haïkus (sans le vers du milieu)tirés de grands auteurs japonais, la réalisation d’un poèmecomposé librement par deux patients atteints de cancer, unentretien final sur l’expérience de l’écriture poétique.Cas clinique : Un homme, M. D., âgé de 25 ans, qui est entraitement pour un cancer.Résultats : Nous montrons les variations discursives utiliséesavant et après l’expérience de l’écriture poétique, à travers lelogiciel Tropes V8.4.Conclusion : Le travail poétique avec le haïku peut être unoutil utile, dans un contexte de support clinique en institutionou comme préparation à un travail de psychothérapie. Nouspensons que la structure formelle des haïkus peut inviter à untravail poétique spécifique : évocation poétique, synthèse etschématisation des vécus plus intimes en milieu oncologique