Incentives To Pander

An examination of why politicians choose to employ targeted tax incentives to firms that are inefficient and distortionary.

Who Leads Whom? is an ambitious study that addresses some of the most important questions in contemporary American politics: Do presidents pander to public opinion by backing popular policy measures that they believe would actually harm the country? Why do presidents "go public" with policy appeals? And do those appeals affect legislative outcomes? Analyzing the actions of modern presidents ranging from Eisenhower to Clinton, Brandice Canes-Wrone demonstrates that presidents' involvement of the mass public, by putting pressure on Congress, shifts policy in the direction of majority opinion. More important, she also shows that presidents rarely cater to the mass citizenry unless they already agree with the public's preferred course of action. With contemporary politics so connected to the pulse of the American people, Who Leads Whom? offers much-needed insight into how public opinion actually works in our democratic process. Integrating perspectives from presidential studies, legislative politics, public opinion, and rational choice theory, this theoretical and empirical inquiry will appeal to a wide range of scholars of American political processes.

The ideal introductory textbook to the politics of the policymaking process This textbook uses modern political economy to introduce students of political science, government, economics, and public policy to the politics of the policymaking process. The book's distinct political economy approach has two virtues. By developing general principles for thinking about policymaking, it can be applied across a range of issue areas. It also unifies the policy curriculum, offering coherence to standard methods for teaching economics and statistics, and drawing connections between fields. The book begins by exploring the normative foundations of policymaking—political theory, social choice theory, and the Paretian and utilitarian underpinnings of policy analysis. It then introduces game theoretic models of social dilemmas—externalities, coordination problems, and commitment problems—that create opportunities for policy to improve social welfare. Finally, it shows how the political process creates technological and incentive constraints on government that shape policy outcomes. Throughout, concepts and models are illustrated and reinforced with discussions of empirical evidence and case studies. This textbook is essential for all students of public policy and for anyone interested in the most current methods influencing policymaking today. Comprehensive approach to politics and policy suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students Models unify policy curriculum through methodological coherence Exercises at the end of every chapter Self-contained appendices cover necessary game theory Extensive discussion of cases and applications

Demonstrates how large domestic firms push to liberalize foreign direct investment policies to ameliorate financing constraints, often to the detriment of others.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A lively and bold blueprint for moving beyond the “era of institutional failure” by transforming our outmoded political and economic systems to be resilient to twenty-first-century problems, from the popular entrepreneur, bestselling author, and political truth-teller “A vitally important book.”—Mark Cuban Despite being written off by the media, Andrew Yang’s shoestring 2020 presidential campaign—powered by his proposal for a universal basic income of $1,000 a month for all Americans—jolted the political establishment, growing into a massive, diverse movement. In Forward, Yang reveals that UBI and the threat of job automation are only the beginning, diagnosing how a series of cascading problems within our antiquated systems keeps us stuck in the past—imperiling our democracy at every level. With America’s stagnant institutions failing to keep pace with technological change, we grow more polarized as tech platforms supplant our will while feasting on our data. Yang introduces us to the various “priests of the decline” of America, including politicians whose incentives have become divorced from the people they supposedly serve. The machinery of American democracy is failing, Yang argues, and we need bold new ideas to rewire it for twenty-first-century problems. Inspired by his experience running for office and as an entrepreneur, and by ideas drawn from leading thinkers, Yang offers a series of solutions, including data rights, ranked-choice voting, and fact-based governance empowered by modern technology, writing that “there is no cavalry”—it’s up to us. This is a powerful and urgent warning that we must step back from the brink and plot a new way forward for our democracy.

Political economy has been an essential realm of inquiry and has attracted myriad intellectual adherents for much of the period of modern scholarship. The discipline's formal split into the distinct studies of political science and economics in the nineteenth-century, while advantageous for certain scientific developments, has biased the way economists and political scientists think about many issues, and has placed artificial constraints on the study of many important social issues. This volume calls for a reaffirmation of the importance of the unified study of political economy, and explores the frontiers of the interaction between politics and markets. This volume brings together intellectual leaders of various areas, drawing upon state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical analysis from each of the underlying disciplines. Each chapter, while beginning with a survey of existing work, focuses on profitable lines of inquiry for future developments. Particular attention is devoted to fields of active current development.

What makes a country attractive to foreign investors? To what extent do conditions of governance and politics matter? This book provides the most systematic exploration to date of these crucial questions at the nexus of politics and economics. Using quantitative data and interviews with investment promotion agencies, investment location consultants, political risk insurers, and decision makers at multinational corporations, Nathan Jensen arrives at a surprising conclusion: Countries may be competing for international capital, but government fiscal policy--both taxation and spending--has little impact on multinationals' investment decisions. Although government policy has a limited ability to determine patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, political institutions are central to explaining why some countries are more successful in attracting international capital. First, democratic institutions lower political risks for multinational corporations. Indeed, they lead to massive amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, politically federal institutions, in contrast to fiscally federal institutions, lower political risks for multinationals and allow host countries to attract higher levels of FDI inflows. Third, the International Monetary Fund, often cited as a catalyst for promoting foreign investment, actually deters multinationals from investment in countries under IMF programs. Even after controlling for the factors that lead countries to seek IMF support, IMF agreements are associated with much lower levels of FDI inflows.

Credit is the lifeblood of capitalism and development. Brazil, Russia, India, and China-also called BRICs-have become important creditors to developing countries. However, how will their loans affect economic development and democracy in recipient countries? We need to understand why governments accept Chinese over Western loan offers before we can predict their likely consequences. In Raise the Debt, Jonas B. Bunte systematically explains how governments choose among competing loan offers. Using statistical analyses and extensive interview data, he shows that the strings attached to loans vary across creditors. Consequently, one domestic interest group may benefit from Chinese credit but not U.S. loans, while the opposite is the case for other groups. Bunte provides evidence that governments cater to whichever domestic interest group is politically dominant when deciding between competing loan offers. Combining a comparative politics approach with international political economy methods, Raise the Debt shows how a deeper understanding of governments' borrowing decisions is critical for gaining insights into how these loans could impact growth and democracy on a global scale.