Tuesday, October 31, 2017

the_political_economy_of_liberal_democracy_27march2017-2.pdf

the_political_economy_of_liberal_democracy_27march2017-2.pdf

Rodrik & Mukand



via Capital Ebbs and Flows ( Joseph P. Joyce)



ABSTRACT
We distinguish between three sets of rights – property rights, political rights, and civil rights –and provide a taxonomy of political regimes. The distinctive nature of liberal democracy is that it protects civil rights (equality before the law for minorities) in addition to the other two. When democratic transitions are the product of a settlement between the elite (who care mostly about property rights) and the majority (who care mostly about political rights), they generically fail to produce liberal democracy. This is because the minority has neither the resources nor the numbers to make a contribution to the settlement. We develop a formal model to sharpen the contrast between electoral and liberal democracies and highlight circumstances under which liberal democracy can emerge. We show that liberal democracy requires quite special circumstances: mild levels of income inequality as well as weak identity cleavages. We provide
some evidence consistent with this result, and also present a new classification of countries as electoral or liberal democracies.



UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism” -

UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism” -



via Mark Thoma

Market power begets political power, which begets further market power


Market concentration, regulatory capture, and rents are incontrovertibly connected, the authors argue. As firms become bigger and more profitable, they are able to hire vast armies of lobbyists and capture regulators and elected representatives, securing generous government subsidies and lax antitrust enforcement, which in turn allow them to become bigger and more profitable.

The UNCTAD 2017 Report

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Where Europe went wrong – POLITICO

Where Europe went wrong – POLITICO

In “Fractured Continent: Europe’s crises and the fate of the West,” veteran U.S. journalist and think tanker William Drozdiak shows how three flawed projects launched at the end of the Cold War — the euro, the Schengen zone of passport-free travel, and the eastward enlargement of the EU and NATO — have stumbled into trouble, opening deep rifts in Europe.