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Bureaucracy, Infrastructure, and Economic Growth: Evidence from U.S. Cities During the Progressive Era

Rauch, James E. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 1994

Recent work in the sociology of economic development has emphasized the establishment of a professional bureaucracy in place of political appointees as an important component of the institutional environment in which private enterprise can flourish. I hypothesize that establishment of such a...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005778792

Factions and Political Competition

Persico, Nicola; Silverman, Dan; Rodríguez-Pueblita, … - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2007

This paper presents a new model of political competition where candidates belong to factions. Before elections, factions compete to direct local public goods to their local constituencies. The model of factional competition delivers a rich set of implications relating the internal organization...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005718155

Managing Public Investment Funds: Best Practices and New Challenges

Mitchell, Olivia; Piggott, John; Kumru, Cagri - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2008

Large publicly-held pools of assets are playing an increasingly prominent role in the global investment arena. We compare three distinct forms of such public funds, namely foreign exchange reserve funds, sovereign wealth funds, and public pension funds, to highlight their differences and...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005579916

Cultures of Corruption: Evidence From Diplomatic Parking Tickets

Miguel, Edward Andrew; Fisman, Raymond - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2006

Corruption is believed to be a major factor impeding economic development, but the importance of legal enforcement … versus cultural norms in controlling corruption is poorly understood. To disentangle these two factors, we exploit a natural … generates a revealed preference measure of government officials' corruption based on real-world behavior taking place in the …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005720647

Choosing Size of Government Under Ambiguity: Infrastructure Spending and Income Taxation

Manski, Charles - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012

Attempting to shed light on the optimal size of government, economists have analyzed planning problems that specify a set of feasible taxation-spending policies and a social welfare function. The analysis characterizes the optimal policy choice of a planner who knows the welfare achieved by each...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011262791

Migration, Congestion Externalities, and the Evaluation of Spatial Investments

Dinkelman, Taryn; Schulhofer-Wohl, Sam - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2015

The direct benefits of infrastructure in developing countries can be large, but if new infrastructure induces in-migration, congestion of other local publicly provided goods may offset the direct benefits. Using the example of rural household electrification in South Africa, we demonstrate the...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011240282

The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya

Burgess, Robin; Miguel, Edward Andrew; Jedwab, Remi; … - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013

Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantification of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guided by a model it then examines whether the transition in and out of democracy...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010969355

Highway to Hitler

Voth, Hans-Joachim; Voigtlaender, Nico - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014

Can infrastructure investment win "hearts and minds"? We analyze a famous case in the early stages of dictatorship - the building of the motorway network in Nazi Germany. The Autobahn was one of the most important projects of the Hitler government. It was intended to reduce unemployment, and was...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950692

Incentives and Outcomes: China's Environmental Policy

Deng, Yongheng; Morck, Randall; Wu, Jing; Huang, Jun; … - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013

In generating fast economic growth, China is also generating growing concern about its environmental record. Using 2000-2009 data, we find that, while spending on environmental infrastructure has visible positive environmental impact, city spending is strongly tilted towards transportation...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950924

Government Investment and Fiscal Stimulus in the Short and Long Runs

Leeper, Eric; Walker, Todd B.; Yang, Shu-Chun Susan - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2009

This paper contributes to the debate about fiscal multipliers by studying the impacts of government investment in conventional neoclassical growth models. The analysis focuses on two dimensions of fiscal policy that are critical for understanding the effects of government investment:...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005040613