Bad Policies under an Autocrat's Production
In: CERGE-EI Working Paper Series No. 159
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In: CERGE-EI Working Paper Series No. 159
SSRN
Working paper
In: Cambridge elements. Elements in American politics
Building on a deep theoretical foundation and drawing on numerous examples, we examine how policies spread across the American states. We argue that for good policies to spread while bad policies are pushed aside, states must learn from one another. The three ingredients for this positive outcome are observable experiments, time to learn, and favorable incentives and expertise among policymakers. Although these ingredients are sometimes plentiful, we also note causes for concern, such as when policies are complex or incompatible with current practices, when policymakers give in to underlying political biases, or when political institutions lack the capacity for cultivating expertise. Under such conditions, states may rely on competition, imitation, and coercion, rather than learning, which can allow bad policies, rather than good ones, to spread. We conclude with lessons for reformers and policymakers and an assessment of our overall argument based on state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In: IMF Working Paper, S. 1-43
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In: American journal of political science, Band 53, Heft 1, S. 90-106
ISSN: 1540-5907
Many people claim that politicians use fear to manipulate citizens. Using a model, we examine how select attributes of fear affect a politician's ability to scare citizens into supporting policies that they would otherwise reject. In the model, the politician can alert citizens to the presence of a threat. But his claim need not be true. How citizens respond to this claim differs from most game‐theoretic models. Our representation of this response follows from research in psychology, has distinct conscious and subconscious components, and does not presume efficient processing (i.e., Bayesian updating). Our conclusions counter popular claims about when politicians will use fear to manipulate citizens. They also highlight issues (abstract, distant) and leaders (secretive) for which recent empirical findings about how fear affects politics will—and will not—generalize to other cases.
In: American journal of political science: AJPS, Band 53, Heft 1, S. 90-106
ISSN: 0092-5853
The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Boldly calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisel
In: Development Centre Studies; Policy Ownership and Aid Conditionality in the Light of the Financial Crisis, S. 47-53
In: IMF Working Papers, S. 1-45
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In: Cato Institute Policy Analysis Series No. 594
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In: Politique et sociétés, Band 31, Heft 1, S. 189-191
ISSN: 1203-9438
In: Democracy and security, Band 5, Heft 2, S. 193-197
ISSN: 1741-9166
In: Party politics: an international journal for the study of political parties and political organizations, Band 15, Heft 1, S. 121-123
ISSN: 1354-0688
In: Australian journal of political science: journal of the Australasian Political Studies Association, Band 44, Heft 2, S. 367-369
ISSN: 1036-1146
In: Perspectives on politics, Band 6, Heft 1
ISSN: 1541-0986
In: Public choice, Band 135, Heft 3-4, S. 485-487
ISSN: 0048-5829