Political Institutions, State Capabilities and Public Policy: International Evidence

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. This paper may be freely reproduced provided credit is given to the Research Department, InterAmerican Development Bank. Terms of use: Documents inThe Research Department (RES) produces a quarterly newsletter, IDEA (Ideas for Development in the Americas), as well as working papers and books on diverse economic issues. To obtain a complete list of RES publications, and read or download them please visit our web site at: http://www.iadb.org/res. 2 Abstract 1This paper introduces preliminary evidence from a cross-country database of policy characteristics and potential uses of that database. While most databases have emphasized either the content of policies (e.g., size of government deficits) or countries' formal institutions (e.g., political regime, electoral system), the variables in this database reflect the policymaking capabilities of different polities. The paper attempts to explain these policy characteristics as depending on the workings of political institutions, using a logic emphasizing intertemporal political compromise. The paper also contrasts this logic with alternatives such as the veto players approach. The paper concludes by suggesting the use of these policy characteristics or state capabilities as explanatory variables for the effectiveness of public spending in various social areas.

Government Capabilities in Latin America: Why They Are So Important, What We Know about Them, and What to Do Next

“…We have constructed measures of these government capabilities. In many cases there are trade-offs between the depth and the country-coverage of indicators, but the agenda has been advancing at multiple complementary levels of empirical analysis, including in-depth case studies (IDB, 2005;Stein, Tommasi et al 2008;Palanza, Scartascini and Tommasi, 2013b), the construction of various indicators for LAC countries (IDB, 2005;Stein and Tommasi, 2007;Scartascini, Stein and Tommasi, 2010), and also developing proxies in international datasets to be able to study implications and determinants using econometric techniques in larger samples (Berkman et al, 2008;Scartascini, Stein and Tommasi, 2013;Palanza, Scartascini and Tommasi, 2013a;Franco Chuaire et al, 2013b).…”

“…(Originally ranked 1 to 4, 4 being the lowest score, but the scale was reversed in order to match the rest of the dataset). c. Vote volatility Source: From Berkman et al (2008). Data for Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium.…”

The Making of Policy: Institutionalized or Not?

“…In previous work we have attempted to develop (drawing from in depth analyses of several Latin American countries, as well as available broader international data sources) a number of indicators of the workings of political institutions that seem good proxies for the strength of policymaking institutions as understood in this paper (see Stein and Tommasi, 2007, for Latin America, and Scartascini, Stein and Tommasi (2009) for a broader cross-section of countries). Those measures, which try to proxy judicial independence, congress capabilities, party system institutionalization, and bureaucratic quality are constructed from a number of international data sources (see Berkman et al, 2009).…”

“…We have averaged the responses for the years for which the data is available (2002, 2005, and 2006). See Berkman et al (2009) for details and other measures of "public-regardedness." * controlling for LnGDPpc and regional dummies interesting findings in their own right, as reported in Machado, Scartascini and Tommasi (2009), part of which we summarize in the next section.…”

Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America

“…With collaborators we have developed detailed measures of the workings of institutions in Latin American countries inIDB (2005),Berkman et al (2009), andStein and Tommasi (2007). Every feature explored was highly correlated with corresponding features gauged by the internationally available measures we employ here.…”