London School of Economics and Political Science

About: London School of Economics and Political Science is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Population. The organization has 8759 authors who have published 35017 publications receiving 1436302 citations.

Popular legitimacy and the exercise of legal authority: motivating compliance, cooperation and engagement

Abstract: The traditional goal of legal authorities has been to obtain widespread public compliance with the law. Empirical research findings have shown that legitimacy—typically operationalized as the perceived obligation to obey and trust and confidence in the relevant institutions—plays an important role in achieving such compliance. But over time the goals of legal authorities have broadened in 2 ways. First, they increasingly include the desire to motivate willing cooperation, with legal authorities and members of the public working together to produce social order. Second, conceptions of the goals of the legal system have broadened to include the importance of promoting public engagement in communities in efforts to build social, political and economic vitality. Drawing on these broader goals—and building upon recent conceptual advances in the meaning of legitimacy—we report findings from a major new national survey of U.S. citizens. We examine the role that legitimacy plays in achieving each of these goals of law and in defining the policies and practices of the police and courts which influence legitimacy. Importantly, we also consider whether a focus on achieving this broader set of goals leads to a need to reexamine the traditional theoretical conception of legitimacy. Our findings support the utility of a multidimensional conception of legitimacy that differentiates between consent to authority and normative justifiability of power. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)

The Long Term Consequences of Resource-Based Specialisation*

Abstract: The Long-Term Consequences of Regional Specialization* What are the consequences of resource-based regional specialization, when it persists over a long period of time? While much of the literature argues that specialization is beneficial, recent work suggests it may be costly in the long run, due to economic or political reasons. I examine this question empirically, using exogenous geological variation in the location of subsurface oil in the Southern United States. I find that oil abundant counties are highly specialized: for many decades their mining sector was almost as large as their entire manufacturing sector. During the 1940s and 1950s, oil abundant counties enjoyed per capita income that was 20-30 percent higher than other nearby counties, and their workforce was better educated. But whereas in 1940 oil production crowded out agriculture, over the next 50 years it caused the oil abundant counties to develop a smaller manufacturing sector. This led to slower accumulation of human capital in the oil abundant counties, and to a narrowing of per capita income differentials to about 5 percentage points. Despite this caveat, the gains from specialization were large, and specialization had little impact on the fraction of total income spent by local government or on income inequality.

Financial Contagion through Capital Connections: A Model of the Origin and Spread of Bank Panics

Abstract: Financial contagion is modeled as an equilibrium phenomenon in a dynamic setting with incomplete information and multiple banks. The equilibrium probability of bank failure is uniquely determined. We explore how the cross holding of deposits motivated by imperfectly correlated regional liquidity shocks can lead to contagious effects conditional on the failure of a financial institution. We show that contagion is possible in the unique equilibrium of the economy and characterize exactly when it may exist. At the same time, we identify a direction of flow for contagious effects, which provides a rationale for localized financial panics. Simulations identify the optimal level of interbank deposit holdings in the presence of contagion risk. Our results suggest that when the probability of bank failure is low, maximal levels of interbank holdings are optimal. When cross holding of deposits is complete, we demonstrate that the intensity of contagion is increasing in the size of regionally aggregate liquidity shocks.