Russia and the World in the 21st Century

Program entitled Russia and the World in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change by Dr. Thomas Remington, who is one of the very foremost scholars of Russian affairs in the western world

Government Transfers and Political Support

We estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty program - the Uruguayan PANES - on political support for the government that implemented it. The program mainly consisted of a monthly cash transfer for a period of roughly two and half years. Using the discontinuity in program assignment based on a pre-treatment score, we find that beneficiary households are 21 to 28 percentage points more likely to favor the current government (relative to the previous government). Impacts on political support are larger among poorer households and for those near the center of the political spectrum, consistent with the probabilistic voting model in political economy. Effects persist after the cash transfer program ends. We estimate that the annual cost of increasing government political support by 1 percentage point is roughly 0.9% of annual government social expenditures.Conditional cash transfers, redistributive politics, voting, regression discontinuity

Education as Liberation?

Scholars have long speculated about education’s political impacts, variously arguing that it promotes modern or pro-democratic attitudes; that it instills acceptance of existing authority; and that it empowers the disadvantaged to challenge authority. To avoid endogeneity bias, if schooling requires some willingness to accept authority, we assess the political and social impacts of a randomized girls’ merit scholarship incentive program in Kenya that raised test scores and secondary schooling. We find little evidence for modernization theory. Consistent with the empowerment view, young women in program schools were less likely to accept domestic violence. Moreover, the program increased objective political knowledge, and reduced acceptance of political authority. However, this rejection of the status quo did not translate into greater perceived political efficacy, community participation, or voting intentions. Instead, the perceived legitimacy of political violence increased. Reverse causality may help account for the view that education instills greater acceptance of authority.

Citizen Skeptic: Cicero’s Academic Republicanism

The skeptical challenge to politics is that if knowledge is in short supply and it is a condition for the proper use of political power, then there is very little just politics. Cicero’s Republicanism is posed as a program for political legitimacy wherein both citizens and their states are far from ideal. The result is a form of what is termed negative conservatism, which shows political gridlock in a more positive light

So No Damn Politician Ever Scrap It: The Constitutional Protection of Social Security Benefits

Is the nation’s old-age pension system bankrupt? Each year brings repeated warnings of a need for immediate reform. Yet somehow, reasonable people and even experts dispute both the severity of the crises and the scope of the reforms, if any, that ought to be taken. Completely overlooked in the debate, however, are the legal and even constitutional limits to any reformation plan. President Roosevelt intended to create a program that would withstand political compromise—a program that would create a “legal, moral, and political right” to the receipt of benefits. Nearly seventy years after Social Security’s creation, we must ask: Did Roosevelt succeed

Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas

Does political affirmative action undermine or promote development, and for whom? We examine Scheduled Areas in India, which reserve political office for the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Tribes. We apply a new theoretical framework and dataset of 217,000 villages to evaluate the overall impact of affirmative action on development, as well as its distributional consequences for minorities and non-minorities. Examining effects on the world’s largest employment program, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, we find that reservations deliver no worse overall outcomes, that there are large gains for targeted minorities, and that these gains come at the cost of the relatively privileged, not other minorities. We also find broader improvements in other pro-poor policies, including a rural roads program and general public goods. Contrary to the expectations of affirmative action skeptics, our results indicate that affirmative action can redistribute both political and economic power without hindering overall development

The Case for Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China

This program statement was developed to influence the important debate on U.S.-China economic relations. The statement presents a clear and simple case for Congressional approval of the PNTR legislation, which would benefit U.S. exporters and help foster long-term political and social change in China. It argues that China's entry into the WTO will require policy changes within China that will support the country's economic and social advancement, including its attitudes towards human rights, political liberalization, and environmental protection. A failure to undertake permanent normal trade relations, however, would impose economic costs on the United States, as other WTO members displace U.S. investment and trade in China. The statement was approved by CED's Program Committe

Local Employment, Poverty, and Property Value Effects of Geographically-Targeted Tax Incentives: An Instrumental Variables Approach

The federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program is a set of tax incentives targeted to areas of select cities. I estimate the effect of the EZ program on employment, poverty, and property values by comparing areas that received an EZ to areas that applied (and qualified), but were rejected. Because of endogeneity concerns, I use political representation to instrument for EZ designation. OLS results show a positive and statistically significant effect of the program on employment and poverty. IV estimates suggest the program had no effect on employment and poverty, and instead had a large statistically significant effect on property values