Working Paper: NBER ID: w14953
Authors: Kishore Gawande; Pravin Krishna; Marcelo Olarreaga
Abstract: Policy making power enables governments to redistribute income to powerful interests in society. However, some governments exhibit greater concern for aggregate welfare than others. This government behavior may itself be endogenously determined by a number of economic, political and institutional factors. Trade policy, being fundamentally redistributive, provides a valuable context in which the welfare mindedness of governments may be empirically evaluated. This paper investigates quantitatively the welfare mindedness of governments and attempts to understand these political and institutional determinants of the differences in government behavior across countries.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D72; F1; F13; F5
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| proportion of informed voters (D72) | government concern for welfare (I38) |
| lower ideological commitment (P37) | higher likelihood of welfare-maximizing behavior by governments (D69) |
| effectiveness of media advertising (M37) | government welfare concern (I38) |
| demand for special interest money by politicians (D72) | government welfare-maximizing behavior (D69) |
| executive checks and balances (D72) | government welfare concern (I38) |
| electoral competition for the executive office (K16) | government welfare concern (I38) |