Civic norms, social sanctions and voting turnout

This study views voter participation as a collective action problem overcome chiefly by means of "solidary" and "purposive" selective incentives. It is argued that these incentives are primarily in the form of civic or societal norms, rather than special interest norms associated with partisan or group loyalties. The emphasis on civic norms is supported by positive correlations between turnout and other socially cooperative behaviors such as responding to the census, participating in PTA's, and giving to charities. Data on interpersonal pressures to vote are found to support the hypothesis that "enforcement" of voting norms via social sanctions significantly enhances turnout. The American turnout decline is interpreted in terms of a weakening of social ties adversely affecting the socialization and enforcement of norms responsible for generating civic participation

Civic norms, social sanctions and voting turnout

This study views voter participation as a collective action problem overcome chiefly by means of "solidary" and "purposive" selective incentives. It is argued that these incentives are primarily in the form of civic or societal norms, rather than special interest norms associated with partisan or group loyalties. The emphasis on civic norms is supported by positive correlations between turnout and other socially cooperative behaviors such as responding to the census, participating in PTA's, and giving to charities. Data on interpersonal pressures to vote are found to support the hypothesis that "enforcement" of voting norms via social sanctions significantly enhances turnout. The American turnout decline is interpreted in terms of a weakening of social ties adversely affecting the socialization and enforcement of norms responsible for generating civic participation.voting, elections, collective action, social sanctions, free riding

Election Day Registration: The Second Wave

The number of states with election-day registration (EDR) of voters doubled in the early 1990s, providing a new opportunity to estimate the turnout impact of EDR. Because of some important and neglected features of the "first wave" of EDR states, adopting EDR in the early 1970s, there is good reason to expect this "second wave" to generate larger estimates of EDR's turnout impact. Controlling for other factors, new EDR programs are associated with a turnout increase of about 6 percentage points in the midterm elections (1990 to 1994), and 3 percentage points in the presidential elections (1992 to 1996). Contrary to expectations, these estimates from the "second wave" of EDR states do not exceed those generated by studies of the “first wave” of EDR adoption.voting, elections

Sovereign rents and the quality of tax policy and administration

The availability of windfall revenues from natural resource exports or foreign aid potentially weakens governments'incentives to design efficient tax systems. Cross-country data for developing countries provide evidence for this hypothesis, using a World Bank indicator of"efficiency of revenue mobilization."Aid's negative effects on the quality of tax systems are robust to correcting for potential reverse causality, to changes in the sample, and to alternative estimation methods. Fuel export revenues are also associated with lower-quality tax policy and administration, but this finding is somewhat sensitive to outliers. Non-fuel resource exports, in contrast, show no relationship to the efficiency of revenue mobilization.

Empowerment as a zero-sum game

Empowerment of the poor does not necessarily make them better off – or make the non-poor worse off. In some cases, empowerment may be inefficient, i.e. a negative-sum game. In other cases, it is a zero-sum game, as the poor can benefit only at the expense of someone else. But in many cases, it can be positive-sum, and these opportunities should be identified and pursued by reformers. Attempts by donor organizations and NGOs to empower the poor should focus on means by which the poor are likely to be made better off without making others worse off. Not only is this approach consistent with efficiency, it will also often be the only politically feasible way to empower the poor.empowerment, development, poverty, inequality, institutinoal development, democracy

Governance and growth: measurement and evidence

This paper describes the gradual accumulation of indicators and evidence of the links between governance and growth, focusing on broad cross-country analyses. While each governance indicator developed thus far is in some way imperfect, the faults of some measures are entirely independent from those of others. Therefore, in aggregate, the totality of indicators point in the same direction: good governance is crucial for growth. Unfortunately, while current indicators are getting better at determining the quality of governance, they still are unable to implicate particular institutional arrangements that donors should devote their attention and resources towards. Moreover, the subjectivity of some indicators invites suspicion from local governments and makes reform difficult.governance, growth, institutional development

Social capital, growth and poverty: a survey of cross-country evidence

This chapter surveys the major contributions to the rapidly growing empirical literature on social capital and economic performance, focusing primarily on cross-country approaches. It first addresses characteristics of governments that fall under broad definitions of the term social capital. It then reviews studies of “civil,” or nongovernmental, social capital. Most of this literature explores the determinants of growth in per capita income, devoting no attention to distributional effects. This chapter is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap by providing new cross-country evidence on the effects of social capital on poverty and the distribution of income. This chapter is limited primarily to cross-country studies of social capital and economic performance. It does not attempt to comprehensively review regional-, village-, or individual-level analysis or the expanding literature on social capital’s impact on noneconomic outcomes, such as health, education, or crime. Nor does it examine the rapidly growing body of work that explores the determinants of social capital.social capital, development, trust, norms

Aid dependence and the quality of governance : a cross-country empirical analysis

Good governance -- in the form of institutions that establish predictable, impartial, and consistently enforced rules for investors -- is crucial for the sustained and rapid growthof per capita incomes in poor countries. Aid dependence can undermine institutional quality by weakening accountability, encouraging rent seeking and corruption, fomenting conflict over control of aid funds, siphoning off scarce talent from the bureaucracy, and alleviating pressures to reform inefficient policies and institutions. The author's analyses of cross-country data provide evidence that higher aid levels erode the quality of governance, as measured by indexes of bureaucratic quality, corruption, and the rule of law. This negative relationship strengthens when instruments for aid are used to correct for potential reverse causality. It is robust to changes in the sample and to several alternative forms of estimation. Recent studies have concluded that aid's impact on economic growth and infant mortality is conditional on policy and institutional gaps. The author's results indicate that the size of the institutional gap itself increases with aid levels.Gender and Development,Decentralization,Economic Theory&Research,Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness,School Health,Economic Policy, Institutions and Governance,National Governance,School Health,Governance Indicators,Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness

Does motor voter work? Evidence from state-level data

Using time-series cross-section data on state-level registration and turnout, "motor voter" registration programs mandated by the National Voter Registration Act are found to be effective in enhancing voter participation in the states that have already adopted them. A "duration" specification for motor voter is introduced as an alternative to a simple dummy variable specification, as the typical length of states' driver's license renewal cycles implies that not all drivers have had an opportunity to register via motor voter until several elections after implementation of the program. Registration effects are estimated to reach about 13 percentage points, with a turnout impact of roughly half of that level. As very few states to date have "mature" programs in effect, most of this potential impact of motor voter has yet to be realized. Little evidence is found that mail-in or agency registration, also mandated by the NVRA, affect participation rates.voting, elections

Social capital and the quality of Government : evidence from the U.S. States

Social capital - in the form of general trust and strong civi norms that call for cooperation when large-scale collective action is needed - can improve government performance in three ways: 1) It can broaden government accountability, making government responsive to citizens at large, rather than to narrow interests. 2) It can facilitate agreement where political preferences are polarized. 3) It is associated with greater innovation when policymakers face new challenges. Consistent with these arguments, Putnam (1993) has shown that regional governments in the more trusting, more civic-minded northern, and central parts of Italy provide public services more effectively than do those in the less trusting, less civic-minded southern regions. Using cross-country data, La Porta and others (1997), and Knack and Keefer (1997), obtained findings consistent with Putnam's evidence. For samples of about thirty nations (represented in the World Value Surveys), they found that societies with greater trust tended to have governments that performed significantly better. The authors used survey measures of citizen confidence in government as well as subjective indicators of bureaucratic inefficiency. The author further analyzes links between social capital and government performance, using data for the United States. In states with more social capital (as measured by an index of trust, volunteering, and census response), government performance is rated higher, based on ratings constructed by the Government Performance Project. This result is highly robust to including a variety of control variables, considering the possibility of influential outlying values, treating the performance ratings as ordinal, rather than cardinal, and correcting for possible endogeneity.National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Assessment,Health Economics&Finance,Social Capital