The capitalist welfare statehttp://tcw.postach.io/feed.xml2024-03-11T21:58:59.401000ZWerkzeugAttitudes towards migrants and welfare stateshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/attitudes-towards-migrants-and-welfare-states2024-03-11T21:58:59.401000Z2024-03-11T21:57:06ZAndreas Bergh<div>From the abstract of</div>
<div>Afonso, Alexandre, och Samir Mustafa Negash. 2024. "Building a wall around the welfare state, or around the country? Preferences for immigrant welfare inclusion and immigration policy openness in Europe". Journal of European Social Policy.</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Utilizing data from two waves of the European Social Survey across 23 European countries, we develop a typology of individual stances that encapsulate attitudes towards both immigration policy openness and immigrant inclusion in the welfare state. [...] higher education levels are linked to a higher likelihood of supporting either a combination of openness and inclusion or, to a lesser extent, openness paired with welfare exclusion. Additionally, more exclusionary attitudes are observed in countries where welfare usage by migrants is higher.</div>
The Christian Science Monitor on Swedenhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/the-christian-science-monitor-on-sweden2024-02-03T21:53:54.725000Z2024-02-03T21:49:18ZAndreas Bergh<div>The Christian Science Monitor has <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0202/Is-enough-still-enough-Sweden-reckons-with-its-culture-of-lagom">a long piece</a> on Sweden (not mainly about economy, bur more cultural...) , citing me amogn many others</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">The welfare state needs to be lagom, says Dr. Bergh. Benefits can’t be so generous that they reduce work incentives, nor can taxes be so high that they frustrate the broad middle class.</div>
The post-materialist economic freedom puzzlehttps://tcw.postach.io/post/the-post-materialist-economic-freedom-puzzle2024-01-28T17:07:30.822000Z2024-01-28T16:51:00ZAndreas Bergh<div>In one of the papers that I am currently working on, I analyze market friendliness and market bashing. I just found out that it is related to what Pál Czeglédi (2023) call "The post-materialist economic freedom puzzle"</div>
<div>From the abstract:</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Countries with a higher proportion of people with post-materialist values are freer economically than those with a lower proportion. The reasons why this is puzzling are that post-materialist values are not obviously more supportive to economic freedom than materialist ones, and that post-materialism correlates negatively with market friendliness in the West and positively outside it.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>More soon!</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Source:</div>
<div>Czeglédi, Pál. "The Post-Materialist Economic Freedom Puzzle." International Review of Economics, November 3, 2023. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-023-00436-5">https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-023-00436-5</a>. </div>
Higher marginal tax rate increases tax evasion (findings from Denmark)https://tcw.postach.io/post/higher-marginal-tax-rate-increases-tax-evasion-findings-from-denmark2024-01-18T13:43:22.660000Z2024-01-18T13:39:01ZAndreas Bergh<div>This paper contains many reasonable findings:</div>
<div>Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Martin B. Knudsen, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Søren Pedersen, och Emmanuel Saez. "Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence From a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark". Econometrica 79, nr 3 (2011): 651–92. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA9113">Link</a></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>From the abstract (<b>my emphasis</b>)</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">using quasi-experimental variation created by large kinks in the income tax schedule, we find that <b>marginal tax rates have a positive impact on tax evasion for self-reported income, but that this effect is small in comparison to legal avoidance and behavioral responses.</b> Third, using the randomization of enforcement, we find that prior audits and threat-of-audit letters have significant effects on self-reported income, but no effect on third-party reported income. All these empirical results can be explained by extending the standard model of (rational) tax evasion to allow for the key distinction between self-reported and third-party reported income.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Journal of Brief Ideashttps://tcw.postach.io/post/journal-of-brief-ideas2023-10-10T08:57:04.484000Z2023-10-10T08:49:44ZAndreas Bergh<div>My first contribution to the <a href="https://beta.briefideas.org/">Journal of brief ideas</a> was just published.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>The idea: Does it take longer to choose among more alternatives?</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">From an optimization-view of human decision making it makes sense that choosing among more alternatives would take longer, simply because there are more alternatives to evaluate before deciding. If humans use simple rules of thumb or use satificing rather than maximizing strategies, it is far fram clear that choosing among more options will take longer.</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><br/></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">To examine the question empirically, one could add a real life choice situation towards the end of a survey, for example by having the respondents choose among several options for e.g. charity donations. By randomizing the number of options displayed, data on time to choose among N alternatives for N ranging from 2 to around 25 (or even higher) can be easily collected.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><a href="https://beta.briefideas.org/ideas/aae038143cd5cbd6aad6ea305df8a9a5">Here is the published version</a>.</div>
<div><br/></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/3c362bf1-41a7-6430-4679-983110a6b6e2/a9a31724-7c02-3dc8-9c9e-3b144886c9b5.png" style="--en-naturalWidth:757; --en-naturalHeight:138;"/><div><br/></div>
10 classical papers in institutional economicshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/10-classical-papers-in-institutional-economics2023-09-24T20:24:42.119000Z2023-09-24T20:15:00ZAndreas Bergh<div>I am currently experimenting with generative AI in order to understand better how and when to use it. I have discovered that it works well for tasks such as "summarize explanations of the rise of right-wing populist parties" and "provide full references to ten classical papers in institutional economics".</div>
<div>The output after the latter instruction was the following list:</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Coase, R. H. (1937). "The Nature of the Firm." Economica, Vol. 4, No. 16, pp. 386-405.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Granovetter, M. (1985). "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 91, No. 3, pp. 481-510.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>North, D. C. (1991). "Institutions and Economic Theory." The American Economist, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 3-6.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Williamson, O. E. (1985). "The Economic Institutions of Capitalism." Firms, Markets, and Hierarchies: The Transaction Cost Economics Reader, pp. 15-45.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Ostrom, E. (1990). "Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources." Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 2, pp. 41-78.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Davis, L. E., & North, D. C. (1971). "Institutional Change and American Economic Growth." Cambridge University Press.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Coase, R. H. (1960). "The Problem of Social Cost." The Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 3, pp. 1-44.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Barzel, Y. (1989). "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies." The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 97, No. 5, pp. 1155-1189.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Olson, M. (1965). "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups." Harvard University Press.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Stiglitz, J. E. (1988). "The Economic Role of the State." Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 21-42.</div>
Rational choice strikes back?https://tcw.postach.io/post/rational-choice-strikes-back2023-08-17T09:04:28.712000Z2023-07-23T19:33:30ZAndreas Bergh<div><h2>Behavioral Economists in Trouble</h2></div>
<div><b>Dan Ariely</b> and <b>Francesca Gino</b> (and most likely many others) are in trouble, the kind of trouble that involves data manipulation (by the looks of it) and paper retractions. <a href="https://datacolada.org/" rev="en_rl_none">Data Colada</a> has all the details, but the story was also told by an <a href="https://13tv.co.il/item/news/hamakor/season-21/episodes/veo9a-903318236/" rev="en_rl_none">Israeli investigative TV show</a>, transcribed and translated <a href="https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/articles/dan-ariely-investigation-by-the-source-transcript" rev="en_rl_none">here</a>.</div>
<div><br/></div><h3>Episodes of Data Manipulation</h3><div>From a standard rational choice perspective, episodes like these are only to be expected, given that:</div><ul><li><div>Opportunities exist (e.g. adding or dropping observations in the raw data file from an anonymous websurvey or experimental platform)</div></li><li><div>The stakes (fame, fortune and/or positions at attractive universities) are high</div></li><li><div>The probability of getting caught is low (or has been, at least)</div></li></ul><div>These facts add to an already significant pile of spectacular results in behavioral economics and social psychology that do not replicate. Sometimes the results were genuinely shaky (e.g. <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/decade-power-posing-where-do-we-stand">power posing</a>), and sometimes the findings were simply made up, as in the case of Diederik Stapel (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diederik_Stapel" rev="en_rl_none">wikipedia</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html" rev="en_rl_none">NY-Times</a>). See further: </div>
<div><a href="http://the https://nobaproject.com/modules/the-replication-crisis-in-psychology" rev="en_rl_none">Reproducibility Project</a></div>
<div><br/></div><h3>The Standard in Behavioral Economics and Social Psychology</h3><div>The standard in behavioral economics and social psychology has long been that good papers are empirical articles that show that humans behave strangely and irrationally in ways that rational choice theory and neoclassical economics cannot account for. Mainstream economics' mathematical models were frequently criticized as having little to do with reality. The irony is that behavioral economists respond to incentives in a predictable rational manner – and some of their papers fail to describe the real world.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Perhaps we are witnessing the retaliation of neoclassical economics?</div>
<div><br/></div><hr/><div>Update aug 17:</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Gino is suing Data Colada. This is not the scientific exchange we wanted. Donate to their <a href="https://gofund.me/70c497b1">legal defense here</a>.</div>
<div><br/></div><hr/><div><span style="font-family: 'Source Sans Pro';"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="color:#A6A6A6;">Update</span></span></span></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
CALL FOR PAPERS “Urban rural differences in the Nordic welfare states”https://tcw.postach.io/post/call-for-papers-urban-rural-differences-in-the-nordic-welfare-states2023-07-22T23:19:59.950000Z2023-03-08T15:02:46ZAndreas Bergh<div><br/></div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><b>Urban rural differences in the Nordic welfare states</b></div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><u>An Arne Ryde Workshop at Elite Hotel Savoy in Malmö, Sweden, August 18-19 </u></div>
<div style="text-align:center;">This workshop will bring together scholars that examine economic, political and cultural differences between urban and rural parts of the Nordic countries. A broad mix of paper submissions from a variety of disciplines (e.g. economics, economic history, political science, geography, sociology) is encouraged, including a multitude of methods and theoretical perspectives. </div>
<div style="text-align:center;">All papers related the broad topic of urban rural differences will be considered, but we particularly welcome paper contributions that</div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><br/></div>
<div>• use a longitudinal perspective and changes over time</div>
<div>• shed light on center-periphery tensions within municipalities</div>
<div>• study migration decisions</div>
<div>• examine urban/rural differences in culture, values and voting</div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><br/></div>
<div style="text-align:center;">The workshop takes place in Malmö at <a href="https://elite.se/sv/hotell/malmo/hotel-savoy/" rev="en_rl_none">Elite Hotel Savoy</a> close to the central station. For those who arrive on the 17th, there will be an informal gathering on the evening before the workshop. The program is scheduled to star at 10 am on the 18th, and is planned to end by lunch on the 19th. For presenters the Arne Ryde foundation covers food and hotel accommodation (one or two nights). Participants will make and pay their own travel arrangements.</div>
<div style="text-align:center;"><br/></div>
<div style="text-align:center;">Submit your proposal (full paper or abstracts are accepted) to </div>
<div style="text-align:center;">david.sandberg [at] nek.lu.se </div>
<div style="text-align:center;">and to </div>
<div style="text-align:center;">gissur.erlingsson [at] liu.se </div>
<div style="text-align:center;">no later than May 1st.</div>
Everything but the result...https://tcw.postach.io/post/everything-but-the-result2022-12-09T09:35:26.316000Z2022-12-09T09:32:08ZAndreas Bergh<div>This is a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379418303779">HORRIBLE abstract</a>: It has the motivation, the question, the method, the data - and a claim about the findings being important. But not even a sentence on what the findings are.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Studies that focus on individual-level determinants of support for right-wing populist candidates and parties find little evidence that trade-induced economic hardship is important. By contrast, research that analyzes aggregate data often comes to the opposite conclusion: regions that are highly exposed to trade are more supportive of populist parties and candidates than other regions. To address these contradictory findings, we argue that import shocks engender a broad-based response at the regional level, beyond those whose economic interests are immediately and directly affected, and that this reaction is mediated through xenophobic beliefs about immigrants. Using individual-level data from the eighth wave of the European Social Survey (2016), regional import shock data for nine European countries and causal mediation analysis, we explore how imports affect support for right-wing populists in Europe. Our findings have important implications for understanding the relationship between individual- and contextual-level factors and support for the far right</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Source: Hays, J, J Lim, och JJ Spoon. "The path from trade to right-wing populism in Europe". ELECTORAL STUDIES 60 (augusti 2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.04.002.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Do EU-grants cause or mitigate populism?https://tcw.postach.io/post/do-eu-grants-cause-or-mitigate-populism2022-10-25T09:29:40.170000Z2022-10-25T08:42:56ZAndreas Bergh<div><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292121002749">Here, in EER</a>, is paper that is interesting in many ways. The authors:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Albanese, Giuseppe, Guglielmo Barone, och Guido de Blasio. "Populist Voting and Losers’ Discontent: Does Redistribution Matter?" European Economic Review 141 (01 januari 2022).</div>
<div>From the abstract:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">We show that fiscal redistribution matters by comparing Italian municipalities equally hit by the economic shocks leading to populism but, at the same time, very differently exposed to the generosity of the EU structural funds, because of their locations on the two opposite sides of the geographical border that determines eligibility. Estimates resulting from a spatial regression discontinuity design show that in 2013 general election larger EU financing caused a drop in populism of about 9% of the mean of the dependent variable.</div>
<div>In many ways, the paper is a crystal clear paper with a credible identification strategy. Because transfers from EU structural funds are targeted to "Convergence Objective regions", there are strong discontinuities between municipalities:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/e13535d5-fd73-4e2b-b89e-2621a9f1264b/ff7dd5df-07bd-4154-9f72-bc2628fea501.png" /></div>
<div>and it seems that populist voting is more common in municipalities that do not recieve transfers:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/e13535d5-fd73-4e2b-b89e-2621a9f1264b/900b7be0-d69f-446c-9b40-82af9000645b.png" /></div>
<div>[Parties coded as populist: Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Stars Movement), Rivoluzione civile (Civil Revolution), Lega Nord (Northern League), Sinistra Ecologia Libert` a (Left Ecology Freedom), Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), Partito Democratico (Democratic Party), Centro Democratico (Democratic Centre]</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Using a regression discontinuity design, a clear result is identified:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/e13535d5-fd73-4e2b-b89e-2621a9f1264b/82aef811-d365-4a94-8730-26b292a0844b.png" /></div>
<div>As can be seen, average populist vote share falls from about 61 to 58 percent at the eligibility cutoff. Their conclusion:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">We have shown that financial transfers injected by the EU regional policy toward Italian lagging areas have had the ability to reduce the anti-establishment component of populism.</div>
<div>That interpretation is indeed possible. <b>But it seems to me that another interpretation is also possible:</b></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Not receiving EU-grants when neighbouring municipalities (or when some parts of the country) receive grants causes resentment and fuels populism. If there were no structural funds granted to any municipality, how much populism would there be? We do not know.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Thus, despite being a crystal clear paper with a credible causal identification, we do not know if EU-grants cause or mitigate populism - because we do not know the counterfactual.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Graphic non-fiction book on markets and economic freedomhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/graphic-non-fiction-book-on-markets-and-economic-freedom2022-04-28T15:09:32.858000Z2022-04-28T14:50:45ZAndreas Bergh<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/c7bf1bb3-66f1-45b7-9ccd-c4efec6572dc/6ec1cb82-ad2b-4185-aa2f-d1c0cf765c40.png" width="749"/></div>
<div>Good news: If things work out as expected, my graphic non-fiction book on markets and economic freedom, released in Swedish last year, will be published in English (with the Swedish publisher Idealistas) later this year.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>The book is an illustrated book that explains the benefits of markets and economic freedom. It is based on research but it is non-technical and accessible. The book is similar to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960">Bryan Caplan´s Open borders</a>, but my book is much broader: It deals with the market economy in general, and discusses several misperceptions about the market economy.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>The basic message of the book is that the market economy is a tool that helps people work together to achieve their goals. Here is a sample:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/c7bf1bb3-66f1-45b7-9ccd-c4efec6572dc/3eff374d-a04b-4b4d-bb0e-0b40b219de77.png" width="760"/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>I am now <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/publish-open-markets-in-english?qid=999b0767f06dab77c879d0ae48f6f016">raising money for the final stage of the production</a>. Thanks to th Institute for Humane Studies and the Hayek fund, I have a very good translation to work with. The english version will be paperback, rather than hardcover (I actually thinks that woks better for a graphic non-fiction book). Hopefully, you will soon be able to order it on Amazon. </div>
<div><br/></div>
Event: "Does Sweden have a socialist economy?" at KSUhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/event-does-sweden-have-a-socialist-economy-at-ksu2021-10-05T07:47:06.469000Z2021-10-05T07:32:26ZAndreas Bergh<div>Delayed by one year, it now seems <a href="https://coles.kennesaw.edu/econopp/events.php">this event</a> will actually take place at Kennesaw State University in November:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/ad8c69c7-159a-40b4-85af-8a6adf2c2075/1d1ae4e5-f6be-48f0-b040-a80a9e78ce9e.png" /></div>
<div>For those interested in reading more, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revival-Capitalist-Welfare-Thinking-Political/dp/1786435101#customerReviews">here is the paperback version</a> of my book, and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/abs/hayekian-welfare-states-explaining-the-coexistence-of-economic-freedom-and-big-government/C07DB791E78F0E9C8D9090DDB62C96D1">here is my latest related paper</a> on Hayekian welfare states.</div>
Socialist countries according to Americanshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/socialist-countries-according-to-americans2021-07-28T09:33:21.370000Z2021-07-28T09:18:19ZAndreas Bergh<div><div>Yougov <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/10/04/what-do-americans-think-socialism-looks">measures</a> (using sample and weighting to create something they claim to be representative) which countries Americans think are socialist. It may seem like an odd thing to measure, but the results are rather interesting:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/88090eb2-922d-4de1-8c2a-92dfeeec3f53/b613b752-3abd-40de-8043-290f2a0b2f85.png" /></div>
<div>Three thoughts:</div><ol><li><div>It is remarkable how the reputation of e.g. Sweden and Denmark lags compared to the actual development.</div></li><li><div>Compared to democrats, Republicans seem to be much more correct in their ranking of countries .</div></li><li><div>Democrats seem to confuse socialist countries with countries they like, which suggests they see socialism as something good - while the opposite seems to be the case for republicans.</div></li></ol><div><br/></div></div>New paper on how the benefits of economic freedom are distributedhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/new-paper-on-how-the-benefits-of-economic-freedom-are-distributed2021-04-14T09:52:44.211000Z2021-04-14T09:48:27ZAndreas Bergh<div><div>A long time ago, I wanted to examine how (or if) increases in economic freedom correlate with changes in income inequality. As I immediately found out, my friend and colleague <span style="font-weight: bold;">Niclas Berggren</span> had already attacked the question <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018343912743">in Public Choice</a> back in 1999, although with mixed results based on the limited data that were available at the time.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Together with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Therese Nilsson</span>, I published some more robust patterns in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268010000091">European Journal of Political Economy in 2010</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Using the Standardized World Income Inequality Database, we examine if the KOF Index of Globalization and the Economic Freedom Index of the Fraser institute are related to within-country income inequality using panel data covering around 80 countries 1970–2005. Freedom to trade internationally is robustly related to inequality, [...] Reforms towards economic freedom seem to increase inequality mainly in rich countries, and social globalization is more important in less developed countries. Monetary reforms, legal reforms and political globalization do not increase inequality.</div>
<div>Still, the field as a whole was full of conflicting findings, as demonstrated for example by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00181-016-1131-3">Bennet & Nikolaev in 2016</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">we replicate the results from two significant studies using six alternative measures of income inequality for an updated dataset of up to 112 countries over the period 1970–2010. Notably, we use the latest release of the Standardized World Income Inequality Dataset, which allows us to account for the uncertainty of the estimated Gini coefficients. We find that the results of previous studies are sensitive to the choice of country sample, time period and/or inequality measure used.</div>
<div>A couple of years ago - in Ohio of all places - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Christian Bjørnskov</span> fiddled around with a new data source: <a href="http://gcip.info/">The global consumption and income project</a>, and we started a paper that just came out in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12262">Kyklos</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Bergh, Andreas, and Christian Bjørnskov. 2021. "Does Economic Freedom Boost Growth for Everyone?" Kyklos 74(2): 170–86. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12262">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/kykl.12262</a> (April 13, 2021).</div>
<div>The paper essentially does three things</div><ul><li><div>We summarize research on specific reforms that increase economic freedom and causally affect income or productivity</div></li><li><div>We note that these reforms have ambiguous implications for inequality as measured by the Gini-coefficient, because they could benefit high-income earners by increasing the returns to capital (at least in the short to medium run), and simultaneously benefit low-income earners by lowering barriers to entry and promoting competition more generally.</div></li><li><div>We estimate the association between economic freeom and income growth for each quintile of the income distribution, and show that economic freedom affects seems to affect all parts of the income distribution roughly equally. However, in democracies, the point estimate is indeed larger for the lowest and the highest quintile:</div></li></ul><div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/be2b66f0-9bbf-4bb4-bf3a-628b1eb47d88/0763b1c9-5d20-4efb-99cc-0cf2a2391346.png" /></div>
<div>Potentially, this explains the mixed findings in studies using the Gini-coefficient.</div>
<div><span style="text-decoration: underline;">From the paper</span>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">To illustrate the size of our estimated associations, we note first that (as shown in Table 1) incomes grow on average between 8% and 9% over a five-year period in our sample. Based on the estimates in democracies, a one standard-deviation increase in institutional quality is associated with roughly 6 percentage units of higher income growth in quintiles one and five, and roughly 4 percentage units of higher growth in quintiles two, three, and four. While these differences are in line with the idea that economic freedom reforms benefit mainly the top and bottom of the income distribution, the differences between quintiles are far from statistically significant</div></div><div><br/></div>
The Compensation Hypothesis Revisited and Reversedhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/the-compensation-hypothesis-revisited-and-reversed2020-12-15T00:24:00.466000Z2020-12-15T00:09:10ZAndreas Bergh<div>New paper out, in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9477.12191">Scandinavian Political Studies</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">This note describes how research on the link between economic openness and government size has changed over time. Early interpretations suggested that countries develop welfare states to compensate for volatility caused by economic openness (the compensation hypothesis). Recent findings have cast doubts on this interpretation. For example, more open economies are on average not more volatile, and economic openness does not unambiguously increase the social security demands from voters. Some recent studies suggest that economic openness is particularly beneficial for countries with high taxes and high‐income equality. A re‐interpretation of the compensation hypothesis is thus possible: Through trade, the citizens in large welfare states enjoy some of the benefits associated with cheap labour and high wage dispersion despite their domestic economy being characterized by high real wages, high taxes and a compressed wage distribution.</div>
<div>It's open access!</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>What the reviewers said about the initial submission: </div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">presents a new and interesting perspective on the cross-country relationship between trade openness and government size and structure</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">"inspiring"</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">conceptually unpersuasive [R2. Always R2...]</div>
Here, CNN conveys two important messages about Sweden:https://tcw.postach.io/post/here-cnn-conveys-two-important-messages-about-sweden2020-08-06T13:39:31.175000Z2020-03-24T14:47:17ZAndreas Bergh<div><div><a href="https://youtu.be/Jnld9lcpD_4">Here, CNN conveys</a> two important messages about Sweden:</div><ol><li><div>Sweden differs from other OCED countries not by taxing the firms and the rich higher, but by taxing low-income earners and the middle-class higher.</div></li><li><div>Most low and middle income earners still think the level of taxation is acceptable when accounting for what the welfare state provides.</div></li></ol><div><br/></div></div><div><br/></div>
Is Sweden a democratic socialist country?https://tcw.postach.io/post/is-sweden-a-democratic-socialist-country2020-03-06T13:54:33.573000Z2020-03-06T13:47:09ZAndreas Bergh<div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1DgvQUuQnJmMCwlxZ7SSg">We the Internet</a> TV produced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcX6BUZlEw4&t=7s">a video</a> on the idea that Sweden has "democratic socialism", featuring <b>Johan Norberg</b>, myself and many others.</div>
<div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QcX6BUZlEw4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div>It's very good, given the format an concept - but of course I recommend reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revival-Capitalist-Welfare-Thinking-Political/dp/1786435101">my book</a> for the full story :-)</div>
Pethokoukis on Sanders and scandinavia at AEI.orghttps://tcw.postach.io/post/pethokoukis-on-sanders-and-scandinavia-at-aei-org2020-01-16T10:31:47.227000Z2020-01-16T10:23:56ZAndreas Bergh<div><b>James Pethokoukis</b> <a href="https://www.aei.org/economics/lets-stop-pretending-that-bernie-sanders-wants-to-duplicate-scandinavia/">blogs at AEI.org</a></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Let’s stop pretending that Bernie Sanders wants to duplicate Scandinavia</div>
<div>He writes:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Bernie Sanders supporters are quick to make clear that their guy doesn’t want to turn America into Cuba or Venezuela or the old Soviet Union. By "democratic socialism," the US senator from Vermont means Scandinavia, more or less. And what’s wrong with that? The Nordic nations are pretty nice. Even President Trump has conceded that Norway produces a quality immigrant.</div>
<div>His point is that the scandinavian countries are in many aspects more capitalist and have higher economic freedom than the US, citing <a href="http://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-swedish-economy-triumph-of-social-democracy-or-serendipity">my text in the Milken Review</a>.</div>
On globalization and populism in Europe and Fukuyama's commonplace judgmenthttps://tcw.postach.io/post/on-globalization-and-populism-in-europe-and-fukuyama-s-commonplace-judgment2020-03-22T22:06:20.565000Z2019-11-19T22:44:59ZAndreas Bergh<div>Here is a summary of a <a href="https://www.ifn.se/eng/publications/wp/2019/1304">new working paper</a> that I just published with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Anders Gustafsson</span>.</div>
<div>We start by citing <span style="font-weight: bold;">Francic Fukuyama</span>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">I concur with the commonplace judgment that the rise of populism has been triggered by globalization and the consequent massive increase in inequality in many rich countries</div>
<div>We believe that Fukuyama is right in his description of the "commonplace judgment", and there are some papers that seemingly support that view, such as the <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w22637">Importing Political Polarization</a> paper by Autor et al. These papers typically identify clear causal effects, such as rising trade with China leading to lower employment in US manufacturing and that districts exposed to larger increases in import penetration elected politically more extreme political candidates.</div>
<div>It is, however, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a big step</span> to jump from these partial effects to the conclusion that populism has been triggered by globalization. Trade with China may have had more beneficial consequences elsewhere in the US economy, and economic globalization is more than just trade with China. Similar points have also <a href="https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/trade-and-jobs-a-note/">been made</a> by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul Krugman</span> in a comment on the Autor papers.</div>
<div>One might also worry that papers that identify interesting effects of economc globalization are more likely to be published, while papers with imprecicely estimated zero-effects might not even be completed and/or submitted.</div>
<div>Our working paper checks if there is a pattern across countries such that populist parties have grown more in countries where globalization has increased more. <a href="https://kof.ethz.ch/en/forecasts-and-indicators/indicators/kof-globalisation-index.html">We do so using the KOF globalization index</a> and the <a href="https://timbro.se/allmant/the-most-comprehensive-index-of-populism-in-europe/%20">compilation of election results</a> for populist parties in Europe produced by Swedish thinktank Timbro. The compilation covers 33 European countries (included when they become politically free) during the period 1980-2018).</div>
<div>As it turns out, the commonplace judgement alluded to by Fukuyama is not visible to the eye when comparing increases in populist parties' voteshares and increases in globalization over different time periods:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/3f7df519-92f2-4dcf-8131-c901332814fb/adb4fe4f-b293-4dfa-906a-aa8280ebc37d.png" /></div>
<div>A nice feature of Timbro's compilation is the separation of populist parties into right-wing and left-wing populism. Dividing data into 4-year intervals and running regressions using KOF:s measure of economic globalization de facto (that combines trade in goods, services and trade partner diversity with financial globalization) and right-wing populist vote shares with country and time fixed effects reveals no significant correlation between the two. <strike>does in fact reveal a significant positive correlation between the two. The reason is, however, that EU-countries have more economic globalization and also more right-wing populism. Once EU-membership is controlled for, there is no positive association between economic globalization and right-wing populism.</strike></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Here is what the fixed effect panel regression with right-wing populist voteshares as dependent variable looks like:</div>
<div>[EDIT March 2020: Oops, time-FE was not included in column 1 - fixed now]</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/3f7df519-92f2-4dcf-8131-c901332814fb/dc83a952-2b23-4b5f-899a-e29bebc7f597.png" /></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>In the working paper, we show results also for left-wing populist parties (typically smaller in more globalized countries), random effects instead of country fixed effects (almost identical results) and other types of globalization. The main result is always that once EU-membership is controlled for, more globalized countries if anything have slightly smaller populist parties.</div>
<div>Note also that income inequality (measured using the Gini-coefficient for disposable income <a href="https://fsolt.org/swiid/">taken from Swiid</a>) is typically negatively associated with populism.</div>
<div>Needless to say, these are only correlation. But even if Fukuyama is right that income inequality somehow causes populism, it seems that countries with more inequality for other reasons still end up with less populism on average.</div>
<div>Finally, the fact that EU-membership is associated with about 7 percentage points bigger right-wing populist parties is pretty interesting. It suggests that the European Union does not fully succeed in promoting its <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en">official goals</a> (among which we find tolerance, inclusion, justice, non-discrimination as well as social and territorial cohesion and solidarity). The EU-effect is very much in line with a pattern <a href="https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/files/dani-rodrik/files/populism_and_the_economics_of_globalization.pdf%20">recently noted</a> by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dani Rodrik</span>, that right-wing populists in Europe portray the EU and the elites in Brussels as their enemy, not free trade.</div>
Hayekian Welfare States and Viking Economicshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/hayekian-welfare-states-and-viking-economics2019-10-29T19:02:58.217000Z2019-10-29T18:29:16ZAndreas Bergh<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/239c1df6-f28d-49ce-a32d-df7e8a9a4928/6256aada-0a41-4efc-b0d4-45aa6bf04671.png" width="578"/></div>
<div>Slides from my talk for the Student's Association at the Stockholm School of Economics are now available at <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/drbergh/hayekian-welfare-states-and-viking-economics">slideshare</a>.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><iframe src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/50ZyU4FZcTzJww" width="595" height="485" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;" allowfullscreen> </iframe> <div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="//www.slideshare.net/drbergh/hayekian-welfare-states-and-viking-economics" title="Hayekian welfare states and viking economics" target="_blank">Hayekian welfare states and viking economics</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/drbergh" target="_blank">Andreas Bergh</a></strong> </div></div><div>Immediatly after the talk, I discovered yet another book on how to become more like Sweden:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/239c1df6-f28d-49ce-a32d-df7e8a9a4928/2fc048f4-4f83-4d1e-9c27-74fbe36b87da.png" width="263"/><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/239c1df6-f28d-49ce-a32d-df7e8a9a4928/43749a82-d9f5-406f-ba49-6e1ad6a15b8d.png" width="437"/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Kevin Vallier and reconciledhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/kevin-vallier-and-reconciled2019-09-25T19:44:32.886000Z2019-09-25T19:36:46ZAndreas Bergh<div>From <b>Kevin Vallier's</b> new blog <a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/reconciled/">reconciled</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Today I’m launching a blog to talk about issues surrounding reconciliation, particularly how people with diverse perspectives, tempted to live at odds with one another, can cooperate nonetheless</div>
<div>This project seems very promising, and Kevin will share his thoughts on various papers that deal with social trust, <a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/reconciled/trust-papers-trust-and-monarchy/">starting with</a> the well-cited Bjørnskov 2007 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-006-9069-1">paper</a> "Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison". </div>
More on the unplanned nature of the Swedish modelhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/more-on-the-unplanned-nature-of-the-swedish-model2019-09-10T11:44:29.607000Z2019-09-10T11:43:11ZAndreas Bergh<div><span style="color: rgb(136, 153, 166); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Some background: Swedes began emigrating in large numbers in the 1860s after a famine that was partly caused by frost destroying crops. Photo below is from a ship leaving Gothenburg around 1900. <a href="https://t.co/foMdSaIaO2"><a href="http://pic.twitter.com/foMdSaIaO2">pic.twitter.com/foMdSaIaO2</a></a></p>— Mounir Karadja (@mkaradja) <a href="https://twitter.com/mkaradja/status/1171344487144218624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></span></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://twitter.com/mkaradja/status/1171344487144218624?s=20">https://twitter.com/mkaradja/status/1171344487144218624?s=20</a></span></div>
<div><br/></div>
Workshop announcement: "Social Trust: Measurement, Causes, and Consequences"https://tcw.postach.io/post/workshop-announcement-social-trust-measurement-causes-and-consequences2019-05-27T09:16:18.373000Z2019-05-27T09:12:53ZAndreas Bergh<div><div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Call for papers</span></div></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Workshop</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">"Social Trust: Measurement, Causes, and Consequences"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Elite Hotel Savoy in Malmö, Sweden</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">June 15-16, 2020</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal; font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Generously supported by the Arne Ryde Foundation</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Like no other part of social capital, social trust has the capacity to facilitate collaboration between strangers, making it a powerful solution to collective action problems. However, even though social trust is correlated with a multitude of normatively desirable outcomes such as economic growth, good public health, better working democracies and generous welfare states, we know surprisingly little about the factors that promote trust. We also have a very limited understanding about how and why exactly trust and the good things in life are correlated. This workshop will bring together scholars dealing with social trust and its measurement, causes and consequences.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">A broad mix of paper submissions from a variety of disciplines (e.g. economics, political science, geography, sociology) is encouraged, including a multitude of methods and theoretical perspectives. We particularly welcome paper contributions that employ an experimental perspective, an instrumental variable design, and/or longitudinal data and methods.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city, located in the very south of the country. The city is conveniently situated a 20-minutes train ride from Copenhagen International Airport, and also easily accessible with either car or ferry.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">The organizing team consists of Sandra Donnally (Department of Economics, Lund University), Andreas Bergh (Department of Economics, Lund University) and Jan Mewes (Department of Sociology, Lund University).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">The workshop is generously supported by the</span> <span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;-en-paragraph:true;">Arne Ryde Foundation</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">. Accommodation (including breakfast) and a conference dinner will be provided free of charge. We kindly ask participants to make and pay their own travel arrangements.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">Please send your paper proposals, including an informative title plus an abstract of 300–500 words, to Sandra Donnally (sandra.donally _at_ nek.lu.se</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;-en-paragraph:true;">). Deadline for proposals is September 15, 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in early November 2019.</span></div>
Dealing with media as a researcherhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/dealing-with-media-as-a-researcher2019-04-12T07:39:16.018000Z2019-04-11T13:44:16ZAndreas Bergh<div><div>Today, I gave a talk on how one as a researcher should deal with media. I turned it into a 10 point list - here we go:</div><ol><li><div>Do interesting research.</div></li><li><div>Have a blog. Write about your research, comment on common misunderstandings and stuff you find interesting. Link to your blog from your university page. (Here is an <a href="http://mgerell.blogspot.com/">excellent example</a>)</div>
<div>When journalists search for information, they will see that you are the explaing kind, and they will see what your topics are.</div></li><li><div>Write summaries of your research (on your blog or elsewhere).</div>
<div>At <a href="https://www.ifn.se/">IFN</a>, working paper summaries in Swedish are mandated (<a href="https://www.ifn.se/publikationer/working_papers/2019/1271">example</a>). I hate writing them, but having written them is wonderful.</div></li><li><div>Occasionally reply when others get it wrong (<a href="https://bergh.postach.io/post/nej-ensamheten-i-sverige-okar-inte-den-minskar">here's an excellent example</a>).</div>
<div>Yes, you should bother. It is a virtue, and it is part of your job-description.</div>
<div><br /></div></li><li><div>When journalists call or email, answer, reply or get back to them.</div>
<div>Be prepared to explain stuff about research questions, uncertainty, normative vs descriptive, causation vs causality. Yes, you should bother. It is a virtue, and it is part of your job-description.</div></li><li><div>If you don't know or are not sure: Give pointers to other researchers who know more, when you know these exist. Or ask for time to check the literature for 15 minutes and then get back to the journalist.</div>
<div>You are much more productive in searching and validating research. Journalists who are not willing to give you 15 minutes to find a serious answer, are not serious.</div></li><li><div>Ask to check the text and how your are quoted before publications (again, if they won't let you, they are not serious) OR just accept that you will sometimes be misrepresented and let it go (easier later in your career)</div></li><li><div>If it is radio/TV, remember that time flies and you will only be able to cover half of the most basic stuff. At best.</div></li><li><div>If you are misrepresented, or if your position was too nuanced to be newsworthy, see 2.</div></li><li><div>Remember that there is no reason to add a tenth point to your list just because 10 is a nice and even number. Content is what matters.</div></li></ol></div><div><br /></div>
Mike Munger on Sweden and some related questionshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/mike-munger-on-sweden-and-some-related-questions2019-03-22T13:47:17.026000Z2019-03-22T13:26:36ZAndreas Bergh<div>I honestly thought the idea that Sweden somehow proves that socialism works had disappeared by now. Still, <b>Michael Munger</b> writes:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">I am astonished at how many students, and for that matter adults, in the U.S. honestly believe that the U.S. should model itself after Sweden because Sweden has shown that socialism works.</div>
<div>He goes on to nicely demonstrate why this is simply not true (citing among other sources my book, Sweden and the revival of the capitalist welfare state).</div>
<div>In particular, Munger makes an important point regarding regulation, where I would encourage Swedish policymakers to use other nordic countries as a benchmark, not the U.S.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">In terms of deregulation of business freedoms, measured in the Fraser Institute’s "Index of Economic Freedom," Denmark, Finland, and Norway are the 7th, 8th, and 9th most free; Sweden is 12th.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">The U.S.? It is 15th. The U.S. is rapidly regulating new industries, and further restricting old ones, at the state level in particular. The expansion of professional "licensing" rules, supposedly for the benefit of consumers but in fact in support of organized corporate interests, is making the U.S. less capitalist every day.</div><div>A related question is if the U.S. <u>could</u> become more like Sweden if they wanted to. I think it might be difficult, because even for Sweden, becoming what the country is today, was a bumby road and involved a lot of trial-and-error as well as unintended consequences. I expand on those topics in my follow-up paper on Hayekian welfare states, currently being revised after some conference presentations and feedback. <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/1252.html">Here is the the most recent wp-version</a>.<br/>
From the concluding section:</div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">The lesson for other countries from the Nordics is thus not to copy the blueprint for the Swedish welfare state, for example, but rather to foster the state capacity needed for successful learning from experimentation. Trying to build a fiscally large welfare state without the fundamentals of state capacity and social trust may turn out to be a dangerous strategy. The fact that some countries succeed in combining a large public sector with high levels of economic freedom does not mean that all countries are able to do so.</div>
<div><br/></div>
Working paper on the Hayekian Welfare State is outhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/working-paper-on-the-hayekian-welfare-state-is-out2019-02-03T22:36:04.894000Z2019-02-03T22:33:27ZAndreas Bergh<div>Downloadable <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/1252.html">from Repec</a> is a paper that describes the concept of a Hayekian Welfare State, and illustrates using several examples from Sweden.</div>
<div>Abstract:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">The idea that all types of economic freedom – including limited government – promote prosperity is challenged by the fact that some countries successfully combine a large public sector with high taxes and otherwise high levels of economic freedom. To explain the co-existence of economic freedom and big government, this paper distinguishes between big government in the fiscal sense of requiring high taxes, and in the Hayekian sense of requiring knowledge that is difficult to acquire by a central authority. The indicators of government size included in measures of economic freedom capture the fiscal size but ignore the Hayekian knowledge problem. hinking about government size in both the fiscal and Hayekian dimensions suggests the possibility of Hayekian welfare states, where trust and state capacity facilitate experimentation and learning, resulting in a public sector that is big in a fiscal sense but not necessarily more vulnerable to the Hayekian knowledge problem. Pensions in Sweden are used as a case to illustrate the empirical relevance of the argument. The new pension system represents big government in a fiscal sense, but by relying on decentralized choice it requires relatively little central knowledge.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
One-hour documentary on Sweden now outhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/johan-norberg-and-the-free-to-choose-network-have-produced-a-new-film-on-whether2018-09-28T12:38:39.709000Z2018-09-28T12:32:19ZAndreas Bergh<div><b>Johan Norberg</b> and the <a href="http://freetochoosenetwork.org/">Free to choose network</a> have produced a new film on whether Americans would be better off if the United States was more like Sweden. I was interviewed for the film last summer and now it is out on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq3vVbdgMuQ">youtube</a>.</div>
<div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jq3vVbdgMuQ" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Individualism and inequalityhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/individualism-and-inequality2018-05-18T08:39:47.420000Z2018-05-18T08:00:19ZAndreas Bergh<div>This is an interesting paper (HT: <a href="https://twitter.com/Nonicoc">@nonicoc</a> )</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Nikolaev, Boris, Christopher Boudreaux, and Rauf Salahodjaev. 2017. “Are Individualistic Societies Less Equal? Evidence from the Parasite Stress Theory of Values." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 138: 30–49. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811730094X">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811730094X</a> (May 18, 2018).</div>
<div>They start by noting that...</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">In individualistic societies the ties between individuals are loose and everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate family ( Hofstede et al., 1991 ). Such societies place value on personal freedom, self-reliance, creative expression, intellectual and affective autonomy, minimal government intervention, and reward individual accomplishments with higher social status. Higher rewards generate productivity that makes societies richer by channeling entrepreneurial talent into experimentation and innovation ( Gorodnichenko and Roland, 2012 ), the newly created wealth is inevitably distributed unevenly as entrepreneurs enter new markets and generate extraordinary wealth for themselves.</div>
<div>However, the country level correlation between individualism and inequality is the opposite:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/a1e9ab49-1baa-463d-bbc5-e6e3315332c3/80666e5d-50ff-4487-a2cb-75b4113787d9.png" /></div>
<div>The correlation survives several controls and also an IV-analysis where:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">the historical prevalence of infectious diseases, [is used] as a source of exogenous variation for individualistic values </div>
<div>The authors conclude:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">even if people in more individualistic cultures are more likely to accept and encourage greater individual differences, they end up living in far more equal societies at the end of the day </div>
<div><u>My comment</u>:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">I wish the authors had explored the role of trust a bit more. We suggest (and find support that) trust causes a more eqaul distribution in a related paper:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">Bergh, Andreas, and Christian Bjørnskov. 2014. “Trust, Welfare States and Income Equality: Sorting out the Causality." European Journal of Political Economy 35: 183–99. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.06.002">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.06.002</a>.</div>
<div>As the map reveals, trust and individualism is closely related</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/a1e9ab49-1baa-463d-bbc5-e6e3315332c3/38d0a6e1-e18a-4feb-897b-967879350968.png" /></div>
<div><br/></div>
Explaining immigrant (un)employment in OECD - additional resultshttps://tcw.postach.io/post/explaining-immigrant-un-employment-in-oecd-additional-results2018-03-23T22:43:19.992000Z2018-03-23T21:44:37ZAndreas Bergh<div>A year ago I published a short paper in <a href="http://www.tplondon.com/journal/index.php/ml/article/view/745">Migration Letters</a>. The idea was basically to examine what factors that can explain the pattern that (in most OECD-countries) immigrants have lower employment and higher unemployment than natives. Because there are almost as many theories as there are OECD countries, I used <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1121642">Bayesian model averaging</a> to basically have stata run all possible regressions combining the explanatory variables (starting from row 7) below.</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/b0c1e04e-460a-4bb3-afbf-f31a6c4ccf5b/3d4515d0-3697-4d5c-af47-1a3d9ad6672d.png" /></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>In the paper, the main question is how immigrants fare relative to natives, so native (un)employment is always included, whereas the other x-variables may or may not belong in the model, and the algorithm will calculate a posterior inclusion probability for each variable, and a coefficient for the variable when included.</div>
<div>The main result is that the share of the labor market covered by collective bargaining agreements does far better than other variables, especially for explaining unemployment among immigrants. Based on the bma-results, I discovered the following very simple model for explaining unemployment among immigrants in OECD: </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/b0c1e04e-460a-4bb3-afbf-f31a6c4ccf5b/c860fd99-b374-4cd7-88f7-650285371eeb.png" /><br/></div>
<div><u>In words:</u> A model containing unemployment rate for natives and the share of the labor market that is covered by collective bargaining agreements can explain 73% of the variation in immigrant unemployment in a cross-section of OECD-countries. 10 pcu higher collective bargaining coverage is associated with 0.9 pcu higher immigrant unemployment rate.<br/></div>
<div>Some have asked me if the same variables explain immigrants' labor market outcomes without controlling for natives' labormarket unemployment. In Sweden, immigrants have relatively high employment compared to other countries, but the gap between immigrant and natives is much larger in Sweden than in most other countries.</div>
<div>While I believe that analyzing the gap between immigrants and natives is a more appropriate research question for the method and the variables tested, it is easy to apply the bayesian algorithm to the same data without controlling for natives (un)employment. For those who are curious, the results are shown below. As explained in the paper, I test two sample sizes (with 21 and 25 countries) because some x-variables are available for relatively few countries. The variables are ranked according to posterior inclusion probability (pip), and before that the coefficient is shown.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Explaining immigrant unemployment</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>N=21</div>
<div><ol><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Collective bargaining (0.044; pip = 0.43)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">EPL (1.14; pip = 0.36)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Asylum seekers/capita (-0.03; pip = 0.22)</font><br/></li></ol></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>N = 25</div>
<div><ol><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Collective bargaining (0.064; pip = 0.65)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">EPL (0.93; pip = 0.40)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Asylum seekers/capita (-0.56; pip = 0.32)</font><br/></li></ol></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Explaining immigrant employment </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>N = 21</div>
<div><ol><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Intolerance (-0.58; pip = 0.82)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Mipex (-0.066; pip = 0.36)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Collective bargaining (-0.027; pip = 0.32)</font><br/></li></ol></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>N = 25</div>
<div><ol><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Intolerance (-0.50; pip = 0.95)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">Collective bargaining (-0.047; pip = 0.53)<br/></font></li><li><font style="font-size: 10pt;">EPL (-0.4; pip = 0.23)</font><br/></li></ol></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><span style="text-decoration: underline;">What this means:</span></div>
<div>Collective bargaining agreement coverage is still the variable that best explains immigrant unemployment. Employment protection laws (as quantified by OECD's strictness index from 0 to 6) also seem to matter. Both varaibles have the expected sign (given that expectations are that immigrants will have lower unemployment on more flexible labor markets)<br/></div>
<div>For employment, intolerance matters: In countries where the share who prefers not to have immigrant neighbors is higher, immigrant employment is lower (most likely reflecting the fact that the nordic countries are highly tolerant and also have high employment rates, especially for women)</div>
<div><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S8nLEW4tHKZ7MOFksf2YzGfCqwu7kW2i">Link to datafile</a> (stata)</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Capitalism and democracy are both based on egalitarianismhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/stumbled-over-this-course-introduces-as-follows2017-09-11T18:44:35.061000Z2017-09-11T18:20:36ZAndreas Bergh<div>Stumbled over <a href="https://capitalistdemocracy.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/lecture-1-the-global-political-economy-of-capitalism/">this course</a>, introduced as follows:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">One core question permeates political economy scholarship: how is it possible to combine capitalism (free markets) with democracy (collective choice)? One produces stark inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth, whilst the other (the democratic state), in principle, is based on egalitarianism (one person, one vote).</div>
<div>The comparison between capitalism and democracy made here (and in many other places...) is not really fair. Why? Because the (alleged) consequences of capitalism (inequality) are contrasted with the founding principle of democracy (egalitarianism). A more informative comparison would be to compare consequences of capitalism with consequences of democracy, and similarly compare foundations of capitalism with the foundations of democracy.</div>
<div>Doing so reveals that they share some features: The are both, in fact, based on egalitarianism (everyone's right to property and everyone's right to some political rights) and they both result in some inequality (democratic influence and profits will typically not be uniformly distributed).</div>
<div>Still, both systems are doing ok when compared to their alternatives, socialism and dictatorship.</div>
Here are my slides from my presentation at the American Public Choice Society mehttps://tcw.postach.io/post/here-are-my-slides-from-my-presentation-at-the-american-public-choice-society-me2017-03-31T08:41:25.943000Z2017-03-31T08:39:15ZAndreas Bergh<div><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/drbergh/the-moldable-young-american-public-choice-society-2017">Here are my slides</a> from my presentation at the American Public Choice Society meeting in New Orleans, March 2-4. Full paper <a href="http://www.ifn.se/publikationer/working_papers/2016/1132">is here</a>. </div>
<div><iframe src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/26d7ZjqQZe3eSt" width="595" height="485" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;" allowfullscreen> </iframe> <div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="//www.slideshare.net/drbergh/the-moldable-young-american-public-choice-society-2017" title="The moldable young (American Public Choice Society 2017)" target="_blank">The moldable young (American Public Choice Society 2017)</a> </strong> from <strong><a target="_blank" href="//www.slideshare.net/drbergh">Andreas Bergh</a></strong> </div></div>New article on Sweden in the Milken Reviewhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/new-article-on-sweden-in-the-milken-review2017-02-09T09:44:19.826000Z2017-02-09T09:35:34ZAndreas Bergh<div>My latest piece on Sweden is out now in the <a href="http://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-swedish-economy-triumph-of-social-democracy-or-serendipity">Milken Review</a>. This time I try to say something about how and why Sweden became the country it is today. Previously, I have focused on what happened, when did it happened and what the consequences were. Saying something about why it happened is much more difficult. In short, it is easy to paint a picture of wise intentional planning in retrospect, but that is typically not true when you look closer at what really happened. Serendipity and unintended consequences played important roles.</div>
<div>From the introduction:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">The winding road Sweden has taken has made it difficult to say whether being more like Sweden involves increasing taxes and government intervention in the economy – or whether it means liberalization, deregulation and welfare-state retrenchment. So, before other countries try too hard to become more like Sweden, it is wise to look back at how Sweden came to be Sweden.</div>
<div>An example, based on the research of <a href="https://thorberger.wordpress.com/"><b>Thor Berger</b></a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Historians point to the early introduction of mass public education, with the adoption of the 1842 Elementary School Act. The law, which stipulated that every parish must have at least one school, is often mentioned by contemporary politicians as a shining example of Sweden's long commitment to investment in human capital. The policy implication is seemingly clear: political decisions promoted growth early on by mandating public education. That may well be the case. But before jumping to that conclusion it is worth considering the analysis offered by the economic historian Thor Berger of Lund University. [...] </div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">In short, education promoted economic development in Sweden, but democracy at the time did not promote education. Knowing more about what actually happened in Sweden hardly leads to clearer recommendations for other countries.</div>
A Washington Consensus for welfare states?https://tcw.postach.io/post/a-washington-consensus-for-welfare-states2016-10-28T07:22:02.545000Z2016-10-28T06:36:54ZAndreas Bergh<div>A <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268016301719">new paper</a> (together with <b>Margareta Dackehag</b> and <b>Martin Rode</b>) is now forthcoming in the EJPE: "Are OECD policy recommendations for public sector reform biased against welfare states? Evidence from a new database". The paper introduces a database that summarizes the policy advice in the OECD publication <a href="http://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/">Economic Surveys</a>. We show that the policy advice given in these surveys can be summarized as a kind of '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus">Washington Consensus</a>' for welfare states, and that the interest in different types of reforms have varied over time:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/1e06f1d5-ef51-4441-86e4-e0a76980e140/3d030848-add1-4378-8816-dcd6fc16dd68.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div>We quantifiy the perceived reform need and examine its correlates, which led to an interesting discovery: The reform need according to the OECD is highly correlated with the Fraser Institute's <a href="http://www.freetheworld.com/">Economic freedom index</a>.</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/1e06f1d5-ef51-4441-86e4-e0a76980e140/3c09cc59-23eb-48de-a9fb-2590e1b1730b.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div>We also examine if perceived reform need predicts subsequent policychanges. Using the <a href="http://cwed2.org/">Comparative Welfare State Entitlement dataset</a>, we find some evidence that a high reform need is followed by lower welfare state entitlements in countries with a right-wing government, and higher entitlements in countries with a left-wing governments - but these results are not causal, ie these changes may well have ocurred regardless of what OECD recommends.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>The database is <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pdrf4hy">available here</a>. </div>
The naive moldable young?https://tcw.postach.io/post/the-naive-moldable-young2016-09-16T08:08:52.833000Z2016-09-15T15:20:36ZAndreas Bergh<div>Can inferior institutions destroy social trust? In a <a href="http://www.ifn.se/publikationer/working_papers/2016/1132">recent working paper</a> (w Richard Öhrvall) we shed some new light on this question by studying social trust among Swedish expatriates in different types of countries. Obviously, Swedish expatriates are strongly self-selected (as we confirm in the paper, mainly on subjective health), so our main interest is in whether length of stay tend to affect trust differently in countries with different types of institutions.</div>
<div>As (perhaps) expected, it does. But the effect is driven entirely by those who were young when they moved to the new country. </div>
<div>The graphs below show how social trust (measured on a 0-10 scale, corrected for individual characteristics) varies with how long the respondent has lived in the new country. Worst, middle and best refer to the destination countries divided into thirds based on their score in the corruption perception index. </div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/00db6717-8df8-4570-935f-dfc300f0dc9d/387a3c8e-d962-44ca-b79d-e2ff32b4c1a6.png" style="cursor: default; height: auto;"/></div>
<div>What we see is that for those who were older than 30 at the time of arrival, social trust is remarkably stable. Even in the most corrupt destination countries, swedish expats who have lived there several decades are as trusting as those who only just arrived. Among expats that were 30 or less, there is a marked decrease in trust for those who have lived longer in the most corrupt countries. Note however that after 10 years, there is no evidence of a further decline.</div>
<div>(Graphs look similar if we instead use legal quality as measured by the second dimension of the economic freedom index).</div>
The top three countries according to the reputation institutehttps://tcw.postach.io/post/the-top-three-countries-according-to-the-reputation-institute2016-09-02T10:11:49.072000Z2016-09-02T10:09:21ZAndreas Bergh<div>Here is the top of yet another country ranking:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">3. Switzerland — 77.00. Switzerland stands on its own at the heart of Europe despite not being a member of the EU. It is known for its banks and high standard of living, and skiing in the Alps attracts people from all over.</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">2. Canada — 77.82. Canada is high on the list of countries people would love to immigrate to. With a tolerant culture, a strong economy, and high levels of healthcare it is no wonder.</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">1. Sweden — 78.34. Sweden has it all: high-quality exports, a tolerant society, low crime, beautiful cities to visit, a high standard of living, a mild climate, and a strong sense of business. It could well top the list for years to come.</div>
<div><a href="https://www.reputationinstitute.com/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspx?path=~%5Cmedia%5Cmedia%5Cdocuments%5Ccountry-reptrak-2016.pdf&hash=5a4232c6bfda0af12fca90660d5f8d18a657ac230d062e34e0bb589c0d3c1538&ext=.pdf">Source</a></div>
Another book on its way: Sick of Inequality?https://tcw.postach.io/post/another-book-on-its-way-sick-of-inequality2016-08-24T21:20:00.224000Z2016-08-24T21:18:17ZAndreas Bergh<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/2f704f5d-33d5-4785-a5b3-873ea5086205/6362f28f-8830-4161-b93c-83ca320304c2.png" /></div>
<div>Order and read more <a href="http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/sick-of-inequality">here</a>.</div>
New book on corruption in Swedenhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/new-book-on-corruption-in-sweden2016-08-05T17:53:15.984000Z2016-08-05T17:51:24ZAndreas Bergh<div>Released aug 12, 2016 is the following title</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/511cd77b-d192-4b5c-9d79-44a33d150bb6/6c3204d4-65d1-44c6-8408-f27ff8ea1d92.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div><a href="http://www.nordicacademicpress.com/bok/a-clean-house/">Order and read more here</a>!</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Paperback version coming in October!https://tcw.postach.io/post/paperback-version-coming-in-october2016-08-02T17:15:50.994000Z2016-08-02T17:08:13ZAndreas Bergh<div>Good news: Sweden and the Revival of the Capitalist Welfare State will be published in paperback this fall, with an affordable price (32 dollar/20 pounds). <a href="http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/sweden-and-the-revival-of-the-capitalist-welfare-state">Order here</a> :-)</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/a8322110-4821-4abf-b1db-c9ce9f071563/313801c6-b58f-435c-903c-cceff0430006.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
Further evidence that trust explains the welfare state (and not the other way round)https://tcw.postach.io/post/further-evidence-that-trust-explains-the-welfare-state-and-not-the-other-way-round2016-08-02T16:56:22.536000Z2016-08-02T16:45:53ZAndreas Bergh<div>In 2011, I published a paper with Christian Bjørnskov, with one of the best titles I have ever come up with:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Bergh, Andreas and Christian Bjørnskov. 2011. "<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6435.2010.00492.x/abstract">Historical Trust Levels Predict the Current Size of the Welfare State.</a>" Kyklos 64(1):1-19.</div>
<div>The ideas is basically that countries with high average social trust (also known as generlized trust or interpersonal trust, and measured by asking people if they agree that mostr people can be trusted) are more prone to creating and successfully maintaining universal welfare states, and that this mechanism is the main reason why trust and welfare state size is positively correlated at the country level (rather than the idea that the welfare state somehow causes trust).</div>
<div>Granted, some might not be entirely convinced by our country level IV-strategy, but there is now individual level evidence published that strengthens our result:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Daniele, Gianmarco, and Benny Geys. 2015 "Interpersonal trust and welfare state support." European Journal of Political Economy 39: 1-12.</div>
<div>Cited from the abstract:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">This article argues that citizens' trust in their fellow citizens can play a central role for welfare state support, because it buttresses the belief that others will not use the welfare system inappropriately. Using the fourth wave of the European Social Survey, we confirm a strong positive association between interpersonal trust and welfare state support (controlling for institutional trust). We also show that: i) this link is driven at least in part by the mechanism discussed above; ii) causality runs from interpersonal trust to welfare state support (using a sub-sample of second generation immigrants); and iii) the effect of interpersonal trust appears conditional on the perceived quality of a country's institutions.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Should we use standardized inequality databases such as SWIID?https://tcw.postach.io/post/should-we-use-standardized-inequality-databases-such-as-swiid2016-08-02T16:39:16.313000Z2016-05-18T13:23:54ZAndreas Bergh<div>Here is my implicit point of view regarding the debate between <a href="http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/izaizadps/dp8501.htm">Jenkins (2015)</a> and <a href="http://econpapers.repec.org/article/kapjecinq/v_3a13_3ay_3a2015_3ai_3a4_3ap_3a683-691.htm">Solt (2016)</a>: </div>
<div>Below is a table (Table 1) from Rudra (2004).</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/6d406081-e0d4-42e8-b394-41af0479e436/d4ed3cef-569e-46d4-8c8a-fe1c5f5869f9.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div>Do you notice anything strange about these Gini-coefficients? Hint: to verify inequality data, I always look at the country I know best, to see if data make sense...</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><s>[I will update this post with my thoughts eventually]</s></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Clearly, something is wrong with the data regarding Sweden in the 1970s. The table suggests that inequality in Sweden was at its lowest level in 1975 (at 27.3) and at its highest level just a year later, in 1976 (33.1). In a country like Sweden, inequality never jumps that much from one year to another, and for sure not in 1976. Reexamining the Deininger and Squire database, it turns out that the 1975 value comes from the LIS database, whereas the 1976 value is taken from Statistics Sweden. Most likely, the latter includes capital income and the former does not. Checking other figures reveals that mosty data for Sweden are net household income, but for Brazil gross income is used, and for China the unit is the individual, not the household.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Rudra is not alone. In fact, she is better than many other papers because the inclusion of a table like Table 1 above means that the errors are possible to spot by reading the paper closely. Often, D&S data are just added to the analysis without even a simple visual inspection, which means that the analysis uses incomparable Ginis. </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>One of the biggest benefits of Solt's Swiid, is that all Ginis are converted to the same typ (LIS-standard), and mistakes like these are avoided.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>References:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Jenkins, Stephen P. 2015. "World Income Inequality Databases: An Assessment of Wiid and Swiid." Journal of Economic Inequality 13(4):629–71.</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Rudra, N. 2004. "Openness, Welfare Spending, and Inequality in the Developing World." International Studies Quarterly 48(3):683-709. doi: 10.1111/j.0020-8833.2004.00320.x.</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Solt, Frederick. 2016. "On the Assessment and Use of Cross-National Income Inequality Datasets." Journal of Economic Inequality (forthcoming).</div>
<div><br/></div>
Is degrowth a well-defined concept?https://tcw.postach.io/post/is-degrowth-a-well-defined-concept2016-05-11T16:25:12.755000Z2016-05-10T09:54:25ZAndreas Bergh<div>I recently found out that there is an "academic association dedicated to research, training, awareness raising and events organization around degrowth". This is how they <a href="http://www.degrowth.org/definition-2">define the central concept,</a> "degrowth":</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;"><i>Sustainable degrowth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions. Such societies will no longer have to “grow or die."</i></div>
<div>The definition is puzzling for several reasons:</div><ol><li>The definition of degrowth starts by defining "Sustainable degrowth". Are these the same? Is degrowth in itself unsustainable? How does (sustainable) degrowth relate to the (also somewhat vague) concept sustainable growth?</li><li>The definition of degrowth (or possibly sustainable degrowth) contains a number of concepts that can be defined in a number of ways: human well-being and equity on the planet. Possibly, enhanced ecological conditions should be counted as well. What is gained by lumping two (or three) vague concepts into a new concept without clarifying what is meant by well-being, equity and enhanced ecologiocal conditions?</li><li>Apparently, (sustainable) degrowth "calls for a future", suggesting that it is an agent that can act. Based on the definition that was just given, it is unclear how degrowth can call for any type of future. More generally, growth - regardless of type - does not call for anything, it is a term used to decribe something (for example growth of GDP per capita).</li><li>Apparently (sustainable) degrowth is a type of growth that calls for "new forms of democratic institutions". Sure. Let's assume that the two sentences cited so far would appear in a student paper. Most serious university teachers would have a talk with the student, advising him/her to be more precise. Or just stop reading. In this case, lets read just a little more:</li><li>'Such societies will no longer have to “grow or die." ' The phrase "grow or die" seems to be cited, but there is no source. The definition is now polemic. But where are the societies that must "grow or die"? There are plenty of societies with low, no or even negative growth (as measured for example by GDP per capita). They don't die, they have constant or shrinking GDP per capita, the consequences of which can and (has been) both examined and discussed. The argument that some (all? capitalist?) societies must "grow or die" is a straw-man. But most importantly: Why does the definition of degrowth contain a normative argument?</li></ol><div>There may well be good answers to all of these questions - after all, degrowth is an <a href="http://www.pi.lu.se/verksamhet/tema-degrowth">official theme</a> at the prestigious <a href="http://www.pi.lu.se/en/">Pufendorf Institute</a> at <b>Lund University</b>.</div>
On the cult of science and the replication crisishttps://tcw.postach.io/post/scientific-regress-by-william-a-wilson-articles-first-things2016-04-19T08:28:18.931000Z2016-04-19T07:48:38ZAndreas Bergh<div style="position:relative;"><div lang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-x: hidden;"><div style="margin-block-start:;margin-block-end:;box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:27px;letter-spacing:0.183333px;"><div>A <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress">thoughtful text</a> by William A. Wilson on the replication crisis, including a nice explanation of Bayesian statistics:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Suppose that there are a hundred and one stones in a certain field. One of them has a diamond inside it, and, luckily, you have a diamond-detecting device that advertises 99 percent accuracy. After an hour or so of moving the device around, examining each stone in turn, suddenly alarms flash [...] What is the probability that the stone contains a diamond? [...] if we were to wave the detector over every stone in the field, it would, on average, sound twice—once for the real diamond, and once when a false reading was triggered by a stone. If we know only that the alarm has sounded, these two possibilities are roughly equally probable, giving us an approximately 50 percent chance that the stone really contains a diamond.</div>
<div>More:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">once an entire field has been created—with careers, funding, appointments, and prestige all premised upon an experimental result which was utterly false due either to fraud or to plain bad luck—pointing this fact out is not likely to be very popular.</div>
<div>The defense:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Many defenders of the scientific establishment will admit to this problem, then offer hymns to the self-correcting nature of the scientific method.</div>
<div>The counter attack:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">So the dogma goes. But these claims are rarely treated like hypotheses to be tested. Partisans of the new scientism are fond of recounting the “Sokal hoax"—physicist Alan Sokal submitted a paper heavy on jargon but full of false and meaningless statements to the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text, which accepted and published it without quibble—but are unlikely to mention a similar experiment conducted on reviewers of the prestigious British Medical Journal.</div>
<div>The bottom line:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">When cultural trends attempt to render science a sort of religion-less clericalism, scientists are apt to forget that they are made of the same crooked timber as the rest of humanity and will necessarily imperil the work that they do. The greatest friends of the Cult of Science are the worst enemies of science’s actual practice.</div></div></div></div>Absolute poverty is falling. What role does globalization play?https://tcw.postach.io/post/absolute-poverty-is-falling-what-role-does-globalization-play2016-04-19T08:42:07.624000Z2016-04-18T21:11:48ZAndreas Bergh<div>The fact that global absolute poverty is falling, is spreading. It is not uncommon to tweet graphs like the one below, illustrating the good news. But why is poverty falling? Is it happening because of globalization, or perhaps despite globalization?</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/bd3a3a45-cde3-4988-8dd8-156dbe22858e/1b7029f6-5d1f-4c33-bb33-25dbc6f8b1d8.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div>A standard view, made famous by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2004.00186.x/abstract">Dollar and Kraay (2004)</a> is that globalization leads to growth, which leads to falling absolute poverty. When they wrote their paper, there was not enough data to systematically test the globlization-poverty relationship. That would change rapidly.</div>
<div>Testing the link between globalization and absolute poverty using data on up to 114 countries over the period 1983-2007, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X14001065">Bergh and Nilsson (2014)</a> confirmed that <b>more globalization is indeed followed by decreasing poverty, but only a small part is explained by the growth of average income levels.</b> Theoretically, globalization can lead to growth without decreasing poverty or it could lead to falling poverty without increasing growth (though especially the latter is unlikely when longer time spans are considered). In all, it seems that the relationship between globalization and poverty is better described by the picture to the right below, compared to the standard view (to the left).</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/bd3a3a45-cde3-4988-8dd8-156dbe22858e/e3e3eb87-d76f-4b38-b16a-b459d56b86e7.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div><u>What is globalization?</u></div>
<div>A relevant question at this stage is to ask 'Exactly what is globalization?' <b>Globalization typically refers to the process by which different</b></div>
<div><b>economies and societies become more closely integrated.</b> A nice measure often used in research is the <a href="http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/">KOF-index</a> of globalization (<a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387740676">Dreher et al. 2008</a>), which allows different dimensions of globalization can be examined in detail, separating economic, social and political globalization. As it turns out, <b>the strongest link to falling poverty are found not for economic globalization in the sense of trade flows (exports plus imports as a share of GDP), but rather from trade restrictions (such as tariffs) and information flows (eg. Internet, Radio, TV and Newspapers).</b></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><u>Is it only about India and China?</u></div>
<div>It is sometimes noted that most of the global decrease in poverty is explained by the development in China and to some extant also in India. It is true that in any population weighted description of global development, China will dominate. Those who are interested in population weighted development might as well do a case study of China.</div>
<div>In the cross country data analysis, however, the rule is that each country is one observation. Interestingly, the world bank data separates urban china from rural china. Thus, India and China are 3 (!) of the roughly 100 countries studied.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><u>Perhaps globalization is good for the poor only when institutions are good?</u></div>
<div>While the correlation seems relatively robust on average, one might still worry that globalization is pro-poor only when corruption is low/institutional quality is high/quality of government is high. As expressed by <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230625501_11">Sindzingre (2005)</a> in an UNU-WIDER report:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">[...]the effect of globalization is likely to be heterogeneous with respect to institutional quality, because ‘[i]nstitutions [...] determine whether the benefits of globalization are spread to the poor or are locked in by particular groups’</div>
<div>Theoretically, this might seem plausible. On the other hand, the marginal impact of say free information flows may well be higher where institutional quality is low. Empirically, it turns out that the pattern is exactly the opposite of what Sindzingre suggested. Using various components from the International Country Risk Guide to quantify institutions such as government stability, law and order, bureaucratic quality, corruption and democratic accountability, in combination with the data from Bergh & Nilsson (2014), we showed in a follow-up paper (<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2015.1102835">Bergh, Mirkina and Nilsson 2015</a>) that <b>the poverty-decreasing effect of globalization is bigger in countries where institutions are worse.</b> The graph below shows how the marginal effect of information flows on poverty varies depending on the level of bureaucratic quality. The slope looks the same for all institutional indicators, suggesting that globalization is especially important for the poor in countries with high corruption levels and inefficient public sectors.</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/bd3a3a45-cde3-4988-8dd8-156dbe22858e/0d43d917-fd9e-4949-b7af-2adeeba11c9c.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><u>What about causality?</u></div>
<div>Clearly, cross-country correlations do not prove that there is a causal effect of globalization on poverty-reduction. Whether you see this as a big problem or not, depends on what question you are ultimately interested in. If you want to know what would happen if some countries randomly 'globalized', and other not, then you are left in the dark (and probably will be so for a long time). On the other hand, if you are interested in what happend to the countries that actually globalized in various ways and for various reasons during the 1983 to 2007 period, the result is both interesting and robust. The sample covers almost all developing countries, and the model is estimated using variation over time within countries, using 5 year averages.</div>
<div>To put it differently, the data show rather convincingly that globalization has been good for the poor, but you should still be careful when giving policy advice to countries.</div>
<div>This said, Bergh and Nilsson (2014) does contain two instrumental variable approaches, using lagged globalization in neighborig countries, and the duration of McDonalds presence as instruments for globalization. Still far from a randomized experiment, these approaches confirm that the variation in globalization that is imposed on countries by McDonalds entering, or by neighbouring countries becoming more open, is also negatively related to absolute poverty.</div>
<div><u><br/></u></div>
<div><u>Enough with this fixed-effect,2SLS nonsense! What does a scatter plot relating levels of globalization to absolute poverty rates look like?</u></div>
<div>Like this (from Bergh and Nilsson 2014):</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/bd3a3a45-cde3-4988-8dd8-156dbe22858e/097b9e90-3919-4643-8bda-e2d34f80d97a.png" style="height: auto;"/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>For more on the effects of globalization, see the excellent survey by <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_4708.html">Potrafke (2015)</a>.</div>
<div><u>References:</u></div>
<div>Bergh, A. and T. Nilsson (2014). "Is Globalization Reducing Absolute Poverty?" World Development 62 (0): 42-61.</div>
<div>Bergh, A., et al. (2015). "Do the poor benefit from globalization regardless of institutional quality?" Applied Economics Letters: 1-5.</div>
<div>Dreher, A., et al. (2008). Measuring Globalisation: Gauging Its Consequences, Springer.</div>
<div>Dollar, D. and A. Kraay (2004). "Trade, Growth, and Poverty." <u>The Economic Journal</u> <b>114</b> (493): F22-F49.</div>
<div>Sindzingre, A. (2005). "Explaining Threshold Effects of Globalization on Poverty: An Institutional Perspective." World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER), Working Paper RP2005:53.</div>
<div>Potrafke, N. (2015). "The Evidence on Globalisation." The World Economy 38 (3): 509-552.</div>
Johan Norberg on Sweden and Bernie Sanders in Reasonhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/johan-norberg-on-sweden-and-bernie-sanders-in-reason2016-04-18T22:40:36.661000Z2016-04-18T21:07:26ZAndreas Bergh<div>Here is <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2016/04/18/bernies-rightamerica-should-be/">a nice piece</a> by <b>Johan Norberg</b> in Reason. The conclusion:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">If Bernie Sanders decided to run for the presidency of Sweden, as Marco Rubio suggested, Swedes would find it laughable. He is far too much of a leftist and a protectionist.</div>
On wealth inequality and growthhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/on-wealth-inequality-and-growth2015-12-20T21:03:59.983000Z2015-12-20T20:59:50ZAndreas Bergh<div>Is wealth inequality bad for growth? That depends on its origins, according to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596715000505">a new paper</a> by <b>Sutirtha Bagchia</b> and <b>Jan Svejnarb</b>:</div>
<div>The abstract:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;"><i>A fundamental question in social sciences relates to the effect of wealth inequality on economic growth. Yet, in tackling the question, researchers have had to use income as a proxy for wealth. We derive a global measure of wealth inequality from Forbes magazine's listing of billionaires and compare its effect on growth to the effects of income inequality and poverty. Our results suggest that wealth inequality has a negative relationship with economic growth, but when we control for the fact that some billionaires acquired wealth through political connections, the relationship between politically connected wealth inequality and economic growth is negative, while politically unconnected wealth inequality, income inequality, and initial poverty have no significant relationship</i>.</div>
Graeme Leach: Forget Nordic exceptionalism: Scandinavia grew wealthy despite big governmenthttps://tcw.postach.io/post/graeme-leach-forget-nordic-exceptionalism-scandinavia-grew-wealthy-despite-big-government2015-10-29T09:00:23.749000Z2015-10-29T08:40:00ZAndreas Bergh<div><a href="http://www.cityam.com/227568/forget-nordic-exceptionalism-scandinavia-grew-wealthy-despite-big-government">From City AM</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">The Nordic Model has become the intellectual battleground over which the big versus small state war has played out in the twenty-first century. Scandinavian countries have seemingly perplexed free market economists with their ability to achieve world-class competitiveness rankings and high per capita incomes, while at the same time operating very high tax and public spending levels as a proportion of GDP. But a close look at the evidence shows that the Nordic economies aren’t exceptional at all. They don’t defy the economic laws of gravity, they confirm them. When the size of government really started to grow in the 1960s and 1970s, there was economic stagnation. [...]</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">These economies offset the negative effects of large governments by applying market-friendly policies in other areas, such as trade openness. The Scandinavian economies have relatively high levels of economic freedom, and on some dimensions of economic freedom actually score higher than the USA.</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;">Small homogenous countries, with high levels of trust, can get away with – up to a point – larger welfare states in a way that larger economies cannot. Trust also reduces “transaction costs" and therefore encourages greater economic activity. So powerful is the effect that some studies show that the positive effect of trust outweighs the negative effect of big government on growth. The danger, of course, is that the rise of the welfare state and a dependency culture undermines trust, makes the welfare state increasingly inefficient, and reduces growth prospects all at the same time.</div>
<div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 104px !important;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: top; box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 65);"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: inherit;"><span style="font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;display:block;clear:both;visibility:hidden;height:0px;">.</span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Krugman on Denmark in the NYT:https://tcw.postach.io/post/krugman-on-denmark-in-the-nyt2015-10-25T17:44:31.490000Z2015-10-25T17:43:01ZAndreas Bergh<div>Krugman on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/opinion/something-not-rotten-in-denmark.html">Denmark in the NYT</a>:</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px;"><i>The answer is that the Danes get a lot of things right, and in so doing refute just about everything U.S. conservatives say about economics.</i></div>
"economics research is usually not replicable"https://tcw.postach.io/post/economics-research-is-usually-not-replicable2015-10-07T11:49:48.849000Z2015-10-06T07:21:46ZAndreas Bergh<div style="text-align:left;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="overflow:hidden;"><div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015083pap.pdf">This new working paper</a> by <span style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: small;">Andrew Chang and Phillip Li has some really disheartening - or even depressing - conclusions:</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 12px;margin-left:40px;"><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><strong>Abstract</strong> We attempt to replicate 67 papers published in 13 well-regarded economics journals using author-provided replication files that include both data and code. Some journals in our sample require data and code replication files, and other journals do not require such files. Aside from 6 papers that use confidential data, we obtain data and code replication files for 29 of 35 papers (83%) that are required to provide such files as a condition of publication, compared to 11 of 26 papers (42%) that are not required to provide data and code replication files. We successfully replicate the key qualitative result of 22 of 67 papers (33%) without contacting the authors. Excluding the 6 papers that use confidential data and the 2 papers that use software we do not possess, we replicate 29 of 59 papers (49%) with assistance from the authors. Because we are able to replicate less than half of the papers in our sample even with help from the authors, we assert that economics research is usually not replicable. We conclude with recommendations on improving replication of economics research.</span></span></div>
<div><p style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-weight:normal;text-align:left;margin-bottom:10px;"/><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 25px; clear: both; padding-top: 0px; display: inline;"><div><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br/></span></div></div></div></div></div>Wanted: Google scholar embeddinghttps://tcw.postach.io/post/wanted-google-scholar-embedding2015-10-04T13:32:56.398000Z2015-10-04T13:01:54ZAndreas Bergh<div>Citations are increasingly being counted in academia, and it is becoming increasingly common to put for example google scholar citation counts on your CV. The weird thing is that to get something like this on a webpage...</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/33bba1e2-b11a-4209-bb75-2d86c86961e8/ae1d57e1-b13a-4b94-a695-3d7f11e82bad.png" style="cursor: default;"/></div>
<div>...I had to copy my citation count from my <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t_dYaHsAAAAJ&hl=sv">google scholar page</a> , which means that it is probably (hopefully...) out of date when you read this.</div>
<div>A little research revealed that apparently it can be done using "<a href="http://www.r-bloggers.com/put-google-scholar-citations-on-your-personal-website-with-r-scholar-ggplot2-and-cron/">R, scholar, ggplot2 and cron</a>", but surely someone at google could let users do it simply by pasting some code the way it is done with youtube videos and whatever.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>The fact that this yet does not exist is a bit worrying, but much more worrying is the fact that I seem to be almost the only one looking for an easy way to "<a href="https://www.google.se/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8&q=%22embed%20google%20scholar%20citations%22&oq=%22embed%20google%20scholar%20citations%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.1593j0j7">embed google scholar citations</a>" - googling this results in exactly one hit [oct 4, 2015].</div>
Yet another political quizhttps://tcw.postach.io/post/yet-another-political-quiz2015-09-24T11:47:57.906000Z2015-09-24T11:39:39ZAndreas Bergh<div><b>My Political Views</b><br>I am a center-right social libertarian<br>Right: 2.55, Libertarian: 6.22<br><img src="http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/grid/25x32.gif"><br><a href="http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html">Political Spectrum Quiz</a><br></div>
<div>A neat thing with <a href="http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/poli-compare.html">this particular quiz</a>, is the ability to do comparisons of countries or other respondent characteristics. An example:</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/e6aa1ea3-07b7-48f8-91f4-9b2eef4d40f3/35595517-9e4c-4463-a7ec-0e725443e26b.png" style="cursor: default;"/></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/a2fdde83-e6cb-46f8-b598-1df971fb628f/e6aa1ea3-07b7-48f8-91f4-9b2eef4d40f3/53779475-35fb-405f-b2ef-c48228104cb9.png" style="cursor: default;"/></div>