Category: Political Science
China fact of the day
The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the president and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices.The net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China’s National People’s Congress, which opens its annual session on March 5, rose to 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in 2011, a gain of $11.5 billion from 2010, according to figures from the Hurun Report, which tracks the country’s wealthy. That compares to the $7.5 billion net worth of all 660 top officials in the three branches of the U.S. government.
The wealth gap between legislatures holds with statistically comparable samples. The richest 2 percent of the NPC — 60 people — had an average wealth of $1.44 billion per person. The richest 2 percent of Congress — 11 members — had an average wealth of $323 million.
The wealthiest member of the U.S. Congress is Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who had a maximum wealth of $700.9 million in 2010, according to the center. If he were in China’s NPC, he would be ranked 40th. Per capita income in China is about one-sixth the U.S. level when adjusted for differences in purchasing power.
That is via Shanghaiist, via @AlbertoNardelli via @AnnieLowrey.
*Fairness and Freedom*
The author is David Hackett Fischer and the subtitle is A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States. Excerpt:
They do not all climb mountains, play rugby, raise sheep, and consume large platters of Pavlova for dessert.
So far it is the best non-fiction book of the year, by a clear mark, I will read more of it soon.
The economics of TV pundit panels
@ModeledBehavior tweets:
Who’ll write “the economics of CNNs extremely, extremely ****ing banal pundit panel”. Surely, there must be a reason for it?
Except he spelt out the entire word.
The goal is to keep people on the same channel, by whatever means possible. The true end of the debate event means the TV will be turned off or the channel switched. It’s not like the old days when on Saturday night the people who wanted to see “Mary Tyler Moore Show” then wanted to watch Bob Newhart afterwards. There is no real sequel to these “debates,” or at least no appropriate sequel which can be enacted with the aid of a television.
So they will do everything possible to stretch out the event. Furthermore, the viewers actually want to talk to each other about the debates, so the continuation should be something which does not command too much viewer attention. No Evil Knievel. The panel is a signal of “now is the focal time to make fun of these guys with the other people on your sofa,” don’t stop, keep up the jokes guys, and the panel members, perhaps unintentionally, try to stretch out that period of your witty mockery for as long as possible. Which isn’t that long, but hey they have to try.
You might be irrational if…
Philosopher Michael Huemer on political irrationality and how to combat it:
Austerity as a substitute for trust
Here is a common view, not incorrect as far as it goes:
Struggling euro-zone economies like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy cannot cut their way back to growth. Demanding rigid austerity from them as the price of European support has lengthened and deepened their recessions. It has made their debts harder, not easier, to pay off.
And here is a useful Paul Krugman post on austerity, perhaps the best single (brief) statement of his views on European austerity. Three observations:
1. I have yet to see a numerical analysis of European fiscal austerity which adjusts for a) falling ngdp, b) the collapse of their banking systems, c) and the collapse of M3 and money markets in some of these regions, noting that in Italy there are partial (very recent) signs of a money market turnaround. The blame gets pinned on the fiscal austerity.
2. I have yet to see a numerical analysis of European fiscal austerity which considers the prospect of later catch-up growth. This can make the costs of austerity much smaller, though of course from discount rates and habit formation there is still a cost.
3. Ideally it really would be better to say “Italy, I trust you to cut spending later, after your economy has recovered.” This cross-national trust is not present, least of all with Greece but also elsewhere. What is the best available policy in the absence of this trust, knowing that the periphery nations have to send some kind of credible signal to the wealthier nations of the North, in return for ongoing aid?
You can think of those three points as the “frontier reasons” why not all economists agree on European austerity. There are indeed some “dY/dG denialists,” but there are too many attacks on them and not enough explorations of the real issues.
Ironically, postponing austerity is most likely to succeed when there is lots of trust in a country (and in fact whether or not that trust is deserved). You can imagine the Swedes agreeing to themselves “we’ll cut spending three years from now” but the Greeks not, not without external constraint. Thus, writers who unmask the depravity of the American polity, and who polarize opinion, are oddly enough doing harm to the anti-austerity point of view.
You will find an alternative perspective on intellectual strategy here.
Congress gets two right
In a rare display of function, Congress extended the payroll tax cut and in the same deal they arranged to sell more spectrum, both good ideas and ones that I have argued for extensively. Frankly, I am pleased but surprised. Any inside knowledge on how this was accomplished?
Political markets in everything
Forgive the music at the link, from Lucknow:
Your vote would not only change the fate of Uttar Pradesh, but it could also fetch extra marks for your child. In a unique first, many schools in the city have decided to award extra marks to students whose parents will cast vote in the assembly election.
And there is this:
The incentive would not be limited to exams alone, it would also find a mention in the character certificate of a student. Mishra suggested that a column for marking whether or not the child successfully convinced his/her parents to vote and hence displayed a sense of civic consciousness will be added in the report card. In case of a student is of 18 years then the relevant entry will be a mark on his/her own performance on the election day.
For the pointer I thank Sharath Rao.
Does unemployment drive rebellion?
Maybe not. There is a new piece out by Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Joseph H. Felter and Jacob N. Shapiro, in Journal of Conflict Resolution, August 2011. Here is an ungated version, excerpt:
Most aid spending by governments seeking to rebuild social and political order is based on an opportunity-cost theory of distracting potential recruits. The logic is that gainfully employed young men are less likely to participate in political violence, implying a positive correlation between unemployment and violence in places with active insurgencies. We test that prediction on insurgencies in Iraq and the Philippines, using survey data on unemployment and two newly- available measures of insurgency: (1) attacks against government and allied forces; and (2) violence that kills civilians. Contrary to the opportunity-cost theory, we find a robust negative correlation between unemployment and attacks against government and allied forces and no significant relationship between unemployment and the rate of insurgent attacks that kill civilians.
Here is a WQ summary of some additional findings from the paper.
*Buckley: William F. Buckley and the Rise of American Conservatism*
By Carl T. Bogus. It is an excellent and admirable book, highly readable, and also a good example of how liberals should write about conservatives.
You can order it here. My previous coverage of Carl T. Bogus is here.
Toy nationalism the polity that is Russia
There hadn’t been many – indeed any – rallies like it before in Russia. Last month saw dozens of toys, from teddy bears to Lego figurines, standing out in the snow of a Siberian city with banners complaining about corruption and electoral malpractice.
At the time, Russian authorities in Barnaul declared the protest “an unsanctioned public event”.
Now a petition to hold another protest featuring 100 Kinder Surprise toys, 100 Lego people, 20 model soldiers, 15 soft toys and 10 toy cars has been rejected because the toys have been deemed not to be “citizens of Russia”.
“As you understand, toys, especially imported toys, are not only not citizens of Russia but they are not even people,” Andrei Lyapunov, a spokesman for Barnaul, told local media.
The story is here and for the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.
Department of Yikes
…his German counterpart [finance minister] suggested postponing Greek elections and installing [sic] a new government without political parties.
I do understand the financial motive here, but this is not a good idea! It is even less of a good idea to say so in public. Is the goal simply to irritate the Greeks so much that they leave the Eurozone on their own? Twitter rumors are suggesting that Finland and the Netherlands are raising similar ideas, namely postponing elections and, it seems, simply ruling the country through its budget? I am not sure how this is supposed to work, or to be received in Greece, or why it should be a good precedent for the European Union. The FT story is here.
Why is there so little money in politics?
With campaign season approaching, maybe it is time to reprise this public choice classic from Stephen Ansolabehere, John M. de Figueiredo and James M. Snyder Jr. (pdf), here is the abstract:
In this paper, we argue that campaign contributions are not a form of policy-buying, but are rather a form of political participation and consumption. We summarize the data on campaign spending, and show through our descriptive statistics and our econometric analysis that individuals, not special interests, are the main source of campaign contributions. Moreover, we demonstrate that campaign giving is a normal good, dependent upon income, and campaign contributions as a percent of GDP have not risen appreciably in over 100 years – if anything, they have probably fallen. We then show that only one in four studies from the previous literature support the popular notion that contributions buy legislators’ votes. Finally, we illustrate that when one controls for unobserved constituent and legislator effects, there is little relationship between money and legislator votes. Thus, the question is not why there is so little money [in] politics, but rather why organized interests give at all. We conclude by offering potential answers to this question.
For the pointer I thank Matt Mitchell.
Romney v. Romney
The joke going around last week was that a liberal, a conservative and a moderate walk into a bar. “Hi Mitt,” says the bartender. Here’s Mitt proving the point:
“This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis,” Romney said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors.”
Hat tip on this one to Paul Krugman.
What else predicts mobility?
Jim Manzi makes some good points:
But what about all the other potential reasons, beyond what their Gini Coefficient was in 1985, for varying levels of social mobility between countries as diverse as Japan, France, and New Zealand?
The most obvious example is just the size of the countries. It’s at least plausible that much bigger countries contain more variety. In fact, if you do something as simple as recreate the Great Gatsby Curve, but use the population of each country as the X-axis, you get a very strong a statistical relationship (log-linear R2 = .64). Big countries have higher IGE. Call it the Moby Dick Curve.
Alternatively, we might see that some countries tend to specialize more than others. As a practical example, part of the reason that a country like Finland can have so much equality and social mobility versus America might be that many more of the relatively poorer farmers who trade food for Finnish mobile phones live and reproduce in other countries. If so, then we might see that if we replace the X-axis with exports as a % of GDP, there could be another statistically significant relationship with IGE. Check (R2 = .48).
Hong Kong v. Shenzhen on Immigration
A full page anti-immigration ad taken out in a Hong Kong newspaper is making waves. The ad (shown at right; note the locust) reads:
Do you want Hong Kong to pay 1 million HKD per 18 minute raising illegitimate child from mainland?
Hong Kong people have had enough of it!
We understand that you suffer from contaminated milk powder, so we tolerate your raid upon our milk powder; we understand that you don’t have freedom, so we receive you over here through “free pass”; we understand that your education is poor, so we share our educational resource with you; we understand that you don’t read traditional Chinese, so we use “cripple” Chinese character (simplified Chinese) in the following: “Please respect our local culture when you are here, without Hong Kong you are all doomed.”
Strongly demand the government to amend the 24th clause of Basic Laws!
Stop the massive invasion of double negative pregnant women from mainland. (double negative = none of the woman’s parents are from HK)
The ad then went viral with versions of the ad created for Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou [text here was corrected, AT] but the Shenzhen version took a different approach. The text here reads:
You are one of us if you come to Shenzhen.
Welcome to Shenzhen!
Because we are all away from home, so welcome here; because this is a big circle Grandpa Deng drew for all of us (metaphor for making Shenzhen special economic region), so welcome here; because you are part of the momentum that keeps Shenzhen going, so welcome here; because of you are the reason behind our 30 years of prosperity, so welcome here; because we want the whole world to know this, so we use English the say the next: “welcome to hometown Shenzhen”.
Warmly welcome every hard worker to Shenzhen!
We wish all Shenzhen people a happy new year and may all your wishes come true!
Hat tip to Bradley M. Gardner.