Democràcia i redistribució: una teoria de transicions polítiques

En el llibre que presenta Carles Boix s'analitza l'existència de la democràcia, així com les raons que expliquen la seva aplicació en un marc polític, econòmic i social. Aplicant la teoria de jocs i en un model en què només existeixen pobres i rics, juntament amb un escenari d'incertesa, s'analitza en profunditat la distribució de la riquesa en una etapa de transició. Al mateix temps, es pren en consideració com la diferència de règims afecta les preferències i el benestar de les persones.In the book that is presented in this paper, Carles Boix analyses the existence of democracy and the reasons for its implementation in a political, economic and social framework. Using the game theory and a model that considers only the rich and the poor, an in-depth analysis is made of the distribution of health during a transition period. Likewise, the way in which different political systems affect the population’s welfare and preferences is also taken into account

Sobirania fiscal, eficiència econòmica i equitat distributiva

Segons les darreres estimacions de la conselleria d’Economia i Finances de la Generalitat de Catalunya, el dèficit fiscal català equival al 8,4 per cent del PIB regional. Aquesta xifra, molt superior a les que suporten altres regions europees amb una renda per càpita similar (a Alemanya el dèficit fiscal màxim se situa al voltant del 4 per cent del PIB de les regions que són contribuents netes), és, com argumenta l’autor d’aquest article, la conseqüència directa d’un sistema fiscal a Espanya que genera greus distorsions econòmiques i que ara mateix no compleix amb uns criteris mínims d’equitat distributiva

Democratic capitalism at the crossroads

The twentieth century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialised West, with widespread support emerging for free markets and representative elections. Yet in the last two decades, this political consensus has been disrupted by growing inequality, dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and the rise of populism. Carles Boix examines how these developments and new technological innovations are changing the relationship between capitalism and democracy

Are You Being Served?: Political Accountability and Quality of Government

This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function of the extent to which citizens can hold political officials accountable for their actions. Although policy-makers may have strong incentives to appropriate parts of the citizens` income, well-designed institutions (those increasing both informational flows and elite competitiveness) boost political accountability and reduce the space left for the appropriation of rents. The following sections of the paper test the model. The presence of democratic mechanisms of control and an increasingly informed electorate, measured through the frequency of newspaper readership, explain considerably well the distribution of corrupt practices and governmental ineffectiveness in three types of data sets: a large cross-section of countries in the late 1990s for which an extensive battery of governance indicators has been recently developed by Kaufmann et al. (1999a); a panel data set for the period 1980-95 and about 100 nations on corruption and bureaucratic quality based on experts` rankings; and corruption data for the cross-section of US states in the period 1977-95.

Setting the rules of the game: The choice of electoral systems in advanced democracies

The origins of electoral systems have received scant attention in the literature. Looking at the history of electoral rules in the advanced world in the last century, this paper shows that the existing wide variation in electoral rules across nations can be traced to the strategic decisions that the current ruling parties, anticipating the coordinating consequences of different electoral regimes, make to maximize their representation according to the following conditions. On the one hand, as long as the electoral arena does not change substantially and the current electoral regime serves the ruling parties well, the latter have no incentives to modify the electoral regime. On the other hand, as soon as the electoral arena changes (due to the entry of new voters or a change in their preferences), the ruling parties will entertain changing the electoral system, depending on two main conditions: the emergence of new parties and the coordinating capacities of the old ruling parties. Accordingly, if the new parties are strong, the old parties shift from plurality/ majority rules to proportional representation (PR) only if the latter are locked into a 'non-Duvergerian' equilibrium; i.e. if no old party enjoys a dominant position (the case of most small European states) --conversely, they do not if a Duvergerian equilibrium exists (the case of Great Britain). Similarly, whenever the new entrants are weak, a non-PR system is maintained, regardless of the structure of the old party system (the case of the USA). The paper discusses as well the role of trade and ethnic and religious heterogeneity in the adoption of PR rules.Electoral systems, political parties, institutions

Las bases sociales y políticas de la abstención en las elecciones generales españolas: recursos individuales, movilización estratégica e instituciones electorales

Este informe de investigación examina los factores sociales y políticos que han determinado el nivel y variabilidad de la abstención electoral en las elecciones generales españolas. Extendiendo los modelos de carácter psicológico y sociológico que se han empleado (con éxito relativo) para explicar la abstención española, este estudio muestra que el nivel de participación en las elecciones generales depende en buena medida de factores estrictamente políticos: la satisfacción global del electorado con la situación política del país, la implantación y capacidad de movilización de los partidos políticos, el nivel de asociacionismo y 'capital social', el grado de competitividad electoral en cada área geográfica y los cálculos estratégicos que los electores realizan en función del tamaño de las circunscripciones electorales y de las distorsiones a la representación que impone la ley electoral. El informe emplea datos individuales, procedentes de las encuestas postelectorales del CIS, y utiliza regresiones multivariantes no lineales, aplicadas a muestras agregadas en panel.Participación electoral, política española, instituciones electorales

Channel adjustments to a succession of water pulses in gravel bed rivers

Gravel bed rivers commonly exhibit a coarse surface armor resulting from a complex history of interactions between flow and sediment supply. The evolution of the surface texture under single storm events or under steady flow conditions has been studied by a number of researchers. However, the role of successive floods on the surface texture evolution is still poorly understood. An experimental campaign in an 18 m-long 1 m-wide flume has been designed to study these issues. Eight consecutive runs, each one consisting of a low-flow period of variable duration followed by a sudden flood (water pulse) lasting 1.5 h, have been conducted. The total duration of the experiment was 46 h. The initial bed surface was created during a 280 h-long experiment focused on the influence of episodic sediment supply on channel adjustments. Our experiments represent a realistic armored and structured beds found in mountain gravel bed rivers. The armor surface texture persists over the duration of the experiment. The experiment exhibits downstream fining of the bed-surface texture. It was found that sorting processes were affected by the duration of low-flow between flood pulses. Since bed load transport is influenced by sediment sorting, the evolution of bed load transport is impacted by the frequency of the water pulses: short interpulse durations reduce the time over which fine material (transported as bed load) can be winnowed. This, in turn, contributes to declining reduction of the bed load transport over time while the sediment storage increases.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft