The Economic Effects of Constitutions. By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini have produced the most ambitious study yet that attempts to identify and estimate the effects of constitutional design on economic outcomes. They draw on data from more than 80 countries and control for demographic, historical, regional, and economic characteristics. The purpose is to determine whether the shape of political institutions has measurable impact on economic policies (e.g., fiscal balance, social welfare spending), on government performance (e.g., corruption indices, protection of property rights), and on direct measures of economic performance (e.g., productivity of capital and labor). The political institutions that draw the most attention are constitutional regime type and the method of electing legislators.

The Economic Effects of Constitutions

dann zu seinem Gegenstand, der Selbstorganisation in der evolutorischen Ökonomik, zu gelangen (S. 256 ff.). Er vermutet, dass schon Adam Smith den Grundgedanken des Paradigmas „unsichtbaren Hand“ vorweggenommen habe (ebenda). Etwas verwirrend dürfte die Unterscheidung des Autors zwischen Mikround Makroebene sein (S. 257), wenn der Leser an die herkömmlichen Kategorien denkt. Gemeint sind vom Autor die einzelwirtschaftliche und die Ebene des Marktprozesses. Damit dürften die ungeplanten Ergebnisse auf der Marktprozessebene und die nicht intendierten Handlungsfolgen (wiederum bezogen auf die Marktebene) verständlicher werden. Später (S. 254) weist der Autor auf einen bedeutenden Unterschied zwischen der physikalischen und ökonomischen Selbstorganisation hin. Im ersten Fall sind die Systemelemente passiv, währen sie im zweiten Fall initiativ und mit Erwartungen sowie Absichten ausgestattet sind. Die beiden Fälle beschreiben das, was Hayek mit der Unterscheidung von geplanter und ungeplanter oder spontaner Ordnung meint. Für ihn dürfte die ungeplante Ordnung ein Phänomen der Selbstorganisation sein, während die geplante Ordnung ein Produkt der Fremdorganisation wäre. Abschließend kommt der Autor zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Übertragung des betrachteten Paradigmas auf die evolutorische Ökonomik sowohl nach Anwendungsbereich als auch nach Erkenntnisgewinn bescheiden bleibt (S. 260). Das dürfte, gemessen an der ebenfalls der klassischen Physik (Mechanik) entlehnten Neoklassik bescheiden sein. Es kann jedoch auch als Aufforderung angesehen werden, weiterzusuchen, ohne die zentralen Phänomene der Neuerung und Entwicklung aus dem Auge zu verlieren.

Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

Notions such as wellbeing, freedom, and social justice are integral to evaluating social progress and developing policies. One increasingly influential way to think about these concepts is the capability approach, a theoretical framework which was pioneered by the philosopher and economist Amartya Sen in the 1980s. In this book Ingrid Robeyns orientates readers new to the capability approach through offering an explanation of this framework. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice also endeavors to resolve historical disputes in the literature and thus will be equally engaging to those familiar with the field. The author offers a novel and illuminating account of how the capability approach can be understood in a variety of academic disciplines and fields of application. Special attention is paid to clarifying misunderstandings that have been caused by different disciplinary assumptions and the interpretive consequences they have for our consideration of the capability approach. Robeyns argues that respecting the distinction between the general capability approach, and more specific capability theories or applications, helps to clear up confusion and misinterpretation. In addition, the author presents detailed analyses of well-known objections to the capability approach, and also discusses how it relates to other schools of analysis such as theories of justice, human rights, basic needs, and the human development approach. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice offers an original and comprehensive account of the field. The book will appeal to scholars of the capability approach as well as new readers looking for an interdisciplinary introduction.

Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined

Answers to the questions ‘Does education influence happiness and if so, how and how much?’ depend on how one defines and operationalizes ‘education’, ‘influences’ and ‘happiness’. A great variety of research scenarios may be constructed from our three essential variables. What public policies one ought to adopt and implement regarding the influence of education on happiness depends minimally on which of the great variety of research scenarios one adopts and maximally on lots of other things as well. My personal preference is for a robust definition of the three terms. Because human beings are complex organisms, an adequate construction of the idea of human wellbeing must also be complex. Therefore, any discipline-driven, reductionist definition that pyschologizes, medicalizes, economizes, geneticizes, socializes or politicizes the idea should be avoided.

Education, Happiness and Wellbeing

In this paper we revisit the relationship between democracy, redistribution, and inequality. We first explain the theoretical reasons why democracy is expected to increase redistribution and reduce inequality, and why this expectation may fail to be realized when democracy is captured by the richer segments of the population; when it caters to the preferences of the middle class; or when it opens up disequalizing opportunities to segments of the population previously excluded from such activities, thus exacerbating inequality among a large part of the population. We then survey the existing empirical literature, which is both voluminous and full of contradictory results. We provide new and systematic reduced-form evidence on the dynamic impact of democracy on various outcomes. Our findings indicate that there is a significant and robust effect of democracy on tax revenues as a fraction of GDP, but no robust impact on inequality. We also find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling and a more rapid structural transformation. Finally, we provide some evidence suggesting that inequality tends to increase after democratization when the economy has already undergone significant structural transformation, when land inequality is high, and when the gap between the middle class and the poor is small. All of these are broadly consistent with a view that is different from the traditional median voter model of democratic redistribution: democracy does not lead to a uniform decline in post-tax inequality, but can result in changes in fiscal redistribution and economic structure that have ambiguous effects on inequality.

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Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality

Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect regardless of public redistributive policies After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the nondistributive effect, a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources Data for fifty autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 are then used to examine whether media freedom—independent of government responsiveness—has a positive impact on life expectancy

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The impact of regime type on health: does redistribution explain everything?

The purpose of this study is to defend the view that education should be evaluated in terms of the capability to achieve valued functionings, rather than mental satisfaction or resources. In keeping with Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach we argue that mental satisfaction provides an inaccurate metric of well-being because of the phenomenon of adaptive preferences. Equally, resources cannot be used as a metric of well-being because of inequalities in the ability to convert income and commodities into valued functionings. Hence, interpreting education as a means to create human capital is also impoverished because it evaluates education solely in terms of the accumulation of resources. In order to provide evidence in support of the human capabilities approach we statistically examine the channels through which educational attainment affects the health functionings implied by life expectancy. Using panel data analysis for 35 developing countries for the years 1990, 1995 and 2000 we compare the health functionings (as indicated by life expectancy) that are achieved by the income growth generated by educational attainment, with the total health functionings that are achieved by educational attainment. We find that educational attainment (as indicated by average years of schooling) has a significant effect on life expectancy independently of its effect by way of income growth. A 1% increase in per capita income increases life expectancy by 0.073954% while a 1% increase in average years of schooling directly increases life expectancy by 0.055324%. Because it shows that income underestimates the health functionings achieved by educational attainment, our empirical findings lend support to the claim that the value of education should be measured in terms of the capability for functioning, rather than resources.

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Human Capabilities Versus Human Capital: Guaging the Value of Education in Developing Countries

The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961–2011

There is an emerging political economics literature which purports to show that legislatures elected based on proportional electoral rules spend more and redistribute more than legislatures elected based on majoritarian electoral rules. Going a step further the authors of this paper consider whether degree of electoral proportionality has an impact on population health and, in particular, the health of the least advantaged members of society. A panel of 24 parliamentary democracies for the years 1960–2004 is used to examine the relationship between electoral institutions and health. The authors find that greater electoral proportionality is positively associated with overall population health (as indicated by life expectancy) and with the health of the poorest (as indicated by a reduction in infant mortality). A panel of 17 countries for the years 1970–2004 is then used to show to that electoral permissiveness modifies the impact of health spending on infant mortality.

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Do electoral institutions have an impact on population health

Turkey established a Customs Union with the European Union in 1996. This study aims to analyse the effect of that Customs Union on the market structure and the pricing behaviour of the Turkish manufacturing industry for the period 1994 to 2000. To that end, the price cost mark-up equation of 12 manufacturing industry sectors is estimated using the import and export ratios with European Union countries together with control variables. A second equation is also estimated for the concentration ratio index, taking the trade ratios with European Union countries as explanatory variables. The estimation method is panel data covering eight years and 12 cross-section units. Estimation outcomes indicate that the export and import ratios of trade with European Union countries have a negative relation with the price cost mark-up in the manufacturing sector. It is concluded that increased imports with union countries have created a positive wealth and efficiency effect upon the Turkish manufacturing industry, due to f...

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Arzu Akkoyunlu-Wigley

Papers

The impact of regime type on health: does redistribution explain everything?

Human Capabilities Versus Human Capital: Guaging the Value of Education in Developing Countries

The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961–2011

Do electoral institutions have an impact on population health

Effects of the customs union with the European Union on the market structure and pricing behaviour of the Turkish manufacturing industry