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Social Capital, Government Expenditures, and Growth

Ponzetto, Giacomo; Troiano, Ugo - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2014

We present a tractable stochastic endogenous growth model that explains how social capital influences economic development. In our model, social capital increases citizens' awareness of government activity. Hence, it alleviates the electoral incentives to under- invest in education, whose...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010851377

Shrouded Costs of Government: Political Economy of State and Local Public Pensions Data

Glaeser, Edward L.; Ponzetto, Giacomo - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2013

Why do public-sector workers receive so much of their compensation in the form of pensions and other benefits? This paper presents a political economy model in which politicians compete for taxpayers' ’and government employees' votes by promising compensation packages, but some voters cannot...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010851457

Heterogeneous Information and Trade Policy

Ponzetto, Giacomo - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2011

Protectionism enjoys surprising popular support, in spite of deadweight losses. At the same time, trade barriers appear to decline with public information about protection. This paper develops an electoral model with heterogeneously informed voters which explains both facts and predicts the...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010692002

Government Spending and Re-election: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Brazilian Municipalities

Litschig, Stephan; Morrison, Kevin - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2012

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010851440

A Positive Theory of Geographic Mobility and Social Insurance

Hassler, John; Mora, José Vicente Rodríguez; … - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2003

This paper presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model that can explain cross-country empirical regularities in geographical mobility, unemployment and labor market institutions. Rational agents vote over unemployment insurance (UI), taking the dynamic distortionary effects of...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010547410

Voting with Preferences over Margins of Victory

Llavador, Humberto - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2005

This paper analyzes a two-alternative voting model with the distinctive feature that voters have preferences over the … and without abstention. Finally, strategic voting (voting for the least preferred alternative) is common for a fraction of …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010547414

Electoral Platforms, Implemented Policies, and Abstention

Llavador, Humberto - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2003

Recent studies of American politics evidence that political polarization of both the electorate and the political elite have moved "almost in tandem for the past half century" (McCarty et al., 2003, p.2), and that party polarization has steadily increased since the 1970s. On the other hand, the...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010547476

Imperfectly Informed Voters and Strategic Extremism

Aragonès, Enriqueta; Xefteris, Dimitrios - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2013

We analyze a unidimensional model of two-candidate electoral competition where voters have imperfect information about the candidates' policy proposals, that is, voters cannot observe the exact policy proposals of the candidates but only which candidate offers the most leftist/rightist platform....

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010851465

Should Different People Have Different Governments?

Boffa, Federico; Piolatto, Amedeo; Ponzetto, Giacomo - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2015

The classic theory of fiscal federalism suggests that different people should have different governments. Yet, separate local governments with homogeneous constituents often end up doing poorly. This paper explains why and answers three questions: when regions are heterogeneous, what determines...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011274513

The Social Contract with Endogenous Sentiments

Cervellati, Matteo; Esteban, Joan; Kranich, Laurence - Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE) - 2007

and the social contract in a model of rational voting over redistribution where individual self-esteem and relative es …-teem for others are endogenously determined. Individuals differ in their productivities. The desired extent of redistribution … in which sentiments, labor supply and redistribution are simultaneously determined. The model has two types of equilibria …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010547222