Sunday, April 9, 2017

Does Greece Need More Official Debt Relief? If So, How Much? | PIIE

Does Greece Need More Official Debt Relief? If So, How Much? | PIIE

Creditor countries and international organizations continue to disagree whether Greece should receive additional official debt relief, and if so how much. This paper first shows that these disagreements can be attributed to competing assumptions about Greece’s future capacity to repay, particularly about economic growth and the fiscal primary balance. 

Monday, April 3, 2017

Academic paper: Is the ‘Constitution of Equality’ Parliamentary, Presidential or Hybrid?

Academic paper: Is the ‘Constitution of Equality’ Parliamentary, Presidential or Hybrid?

Abstract
What does the value of political equality imply for the institutional design of democracies? The existing normative literature highlights the importance of proportional representation and legislative majority rule, but neglects the choice of an executive format. This paper explores two potential egalitarian trade-offs in this choice. First, while presidential systems tend to achieve too little bundling of separable decision-making issues (within political parties), parliamentary systems often tend towards too much bundling (between political parties), thus establishing informal veto positions in the democratic process. This is a trade-off between the ‘adversarial’ and ‘deliberative’ aspects of equality. Second, there is a trade-off between ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ equality. Neither pure presidentialism nor pure parliamentarism may be able to maximise both dimensions of equality simultaneously. The paper argues that certain hybrids between parliamentarism and presidentialism have the potential to mitigate both trade-offs. These hybrids establish power separation between the executive and legislature without allowing for popular executive elections. The argument also has potential implications for the democratisation of the European Union.

Academic paper: Is the ‘Constitution of Equality’ Parliamentary, Presidential or Hybrid?. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260947932_Is_the_%27Constitution_of_Equality%27_Parliamentary_Presidential_or_Hybrid [accessed Apr 3, 2017].


via Leonid Bershidsky : "Parliamentary Democracies Are Just Better at Resisting Populism"

Your Brain Wasn't Built to Handle Reality - Bloomberg View

Your Brain Wasn't Built to Handle Reality - Bloomberg View

If you are objective, you should always be seeking and evaluating evidence that disproves your thesis. 

What's the best source of protein for building muscle – meat or plants?

What's the best source of protein for building muscle – meat or plants?