计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Ethnic Groups in Conflict

A common feature of contemporary political systems is the increasing amount of delegation from governments to non-majoritarian institutions. Governments may decide to delegate authority to such institutions for reasons relating to credible commitments, political uncertainty and policy complexity. this article focuses on independent administrative authorities (autorites administratives independantes) in France. We demonstrate that these institutions enjoy varying degrees of independence. We find that the degree of independence varies as a function of two factors: the need to make a credible commitment in areas subject to market opening and the complexity of policy in particular areas.

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Credible Commitment, Political Uncertainty or Policy Complexity? Explaining Variations in the Independence of Non-majoritarian Institutions in France

One line of research finds the size of the deficit to be positively correlated with the number of political actors. This ‘political fragmentation’ hypothesis has been tested on OECD countries. We successfully replicate Volkerink and de Haan’s (Public Choice 109:221–242, 2001) model on an OECD sample. However, when we add ten non-OECD countries, the effect of political fragmentation disappears. We argue that the importance of political fragmentation varies according to the institutionalization of political systems. When we interact the age of a democracy with political fragmentation, we find that legislative fractionalisation increases the budget deficit as a democracy becomes more institutionalised.

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Political fragmentation, fiscal deficits and political institutionalisation

Do business contributions to political parties convey different messages in different countries, and, if so, why? This article presents a pioneering cross-national study of firm behavior in political finance. It argues that motivations for contributions to parties are either ideological or pragmatic. The author infers motivation by quantitatively relating the payments of 960 firms to various political parties in Australia, Canada, and Germany over periods of between seven and seventeen years. In coordinated market economy Germany, a small number of firms made ideological payments; in liberal market economy Australia and Canada, large numbers of firms made pragmatic payments. Australia's left-right party system creates an awareness of policy risk, which motivated ideological payments, but in Canada's unusually nonideological party system no ideological bias in business financing of politics was found. The statistical analysis is supplemented by a qualitative investigation of discrete and reciprocal exchanges between businesses and political parties.

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If Money Talks, What Does It Say?: Varieties of Capitalism and Business Financing of Parties

This article tests systematically the effect of political structures on the credibility of sovereign debtors in advanced economies. It argues that power-sharing and party system polarization have important effects on long-term interest rates. Where collective responsibility is high and polarization is low, the market perceives a more credible commitment on the part of sovereign debtors. These arguments derived from the theory of credible commitments perform much better than alternative accounts of the politics of sovereign debt, namely a market preference for right-wing governments and more flexible polities. The principal data consist of a panel of 23 rich countries between 1970 and 2009. There are tests for robustness to a wider sample and a variety of different measurements.

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Political institutions, credible commitment, and sovereign debt in advanced economies

The framing of elections represents the most overt instance of the media’s power to influence politics. We content analyzed twelve newspapers’ coverage of the 2011 general election in Ireland. Irel...

Iain McMenamin

Papers

Credible Commitment, Political Uncertainty or Policy Complexity? Explaining Variations in the Independence of Non-majoritarian Institutions in France

Political fragmentation, fiscal deficits and political institutionalisation

If Money Talks, What Does It Say?: Varieties of Capitalism and Business Financing of Parties

Political institutions, credible commitment, and sovereign debt in advanced economies

Commercialism and Election Framing: A Content Analysis of Twelve Newspapers in the 2011 Irish General Election