There is an intensive dispute in political economics about the impact of institutions on income redistribution. While the main focus is on comparison between different forms of representative democracy, the influence of direct democracy on redistribution has attracted much less attention. According to theoretical arguments and previous empirical results, government policies of income redistribution are expected to be more in line with median voter preferences in direct than in representative democracies. In this paper, we find that institutions of direct democracy are associated with lower public spending and revenue, particularly lower welfare spending and broad-based income and property (wealth) tax revenue. Moreover, we estimate a model which explains the determinants of redistribution using panel data provided by the Swiss Federal Tax Office from 1981 to 1997 and a cross section of (representative) individual data from 1992. While our results indicate that less public funds are used to redistribute income and actual redistribution is lower, inequality is not reduced to a lesser extent in direct than in representative democracies for a given initial income distribution. This finding might well indicate the presence of efficiency gains in redistribution policies.
This paper uses a sample of 71 countries in a cross-country context to empirically analyze the relationship between income distribution and software piracy rates. It measures income inequality by the Gini coefficient and alternatively by quintile shares. This analysis remedies previous econometric studies by controlling for a wide range of factors that potentially influence national piracy rates and employing an instrumental variables approach. Results indicate that income inequality is negatively associated with piracy rates but also that the impact of various income classes on piracy rates may depend on the geographic region where a country is located. Moreover, the model predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between piracy and per capita income and reveals an apparent inverse relationship between individualism and software piracy. In addition, the results seem robust to the inclusion of additional covariants often employed in predicting piracy rates and the occurrence of property crime.
This doctoral thesis discusses the impact of direct legislation on society in Switzerland, particularly on the areas 'redistribution of income', 'life satisfaction', 'education', and 'public safety'. The influence of direct democracy at the cantonal level is explored through empirical analyses of synthetic panels and individual data (Swiss Household Panel (SHP), PISA). It is detected that in more direct democratic cantons systematically less financial means are available for policing, education and welfare transfers. What concerns education, this budgetary effect is transmitted through teacher qualification and exerts a negative impact on student achievement in reading and mathematics. With respect to crime, it is observed that a re-allocation of given means from protection of person away to the protection of property occurs, caused by the bounded rationality of the median voter. Efficiency gains, however, were found for the redistribution of income because a more equal distribution of net income is achieved with less means. The hypothesis the people are happier in more direct democratic cantons could not be supported using data of the SHP. Finally, this dissertation also contains a chapter on the development of the institutions of direct democracy at the cantonal level from 1998 to 2003.
This paper analyzes the impact of direct legislation at the cantonal level on the quality of public education in Switzerland, using a cross-section of individual data on reading performance similar to that used in the OECD-PISA study. For this purpose, a structural and a reduced form of an educational production function is estimated. The OLS estimate of a composite index of direct democracy supports the findings previously obtained for U.S. states in which initiative-driven tax limits have had a deleterious effect on student performance in public schools. For a more complete picture, the impact of direct democracy on several portions of the conditional test score distribution is also investigated using a quantile regression method. The negative impact appears to be equal in size between the estimated quantiles and to occur exclusively through the budgetary channel. Moreover, the equipment of schools is found to matter for student performance. Finally, no redistributive influence on students attending the same class is found.
Direct democracy is believed to lead to an allocation of resources that is closer to the median voter's preferences. If, however, the median voter suffers from bounded rationality, the allocation of public goods actually achieved should be affected. Based on recent empirical findings by economic psychologists, optimism bias and availability heuristic are assumed to influence the median voter's preferences for public safety; particularly, (1) a preference for lower spending on crime prevention and (2) a preference for fighting property crime to fighting violent crime is hypothesized. In consequence, in more direct democratic systems, a re-allocation of scarce means in favor of property crimes should be observed. Estimation of a structural economic model of crime using Swiss cantonal crime rates from 1986 to 2001 corroborates these hypotheses.
Identification of a deleterious impact of institutions of direct legislation on student performance by studies for both the U.S. and Switzerland has raised the question of the exact transmission channels for this impact. Studies for the U.S. that find an increase in the ratio of administrative to instructional spending and larger class sizes support the hypothesis of a Leviathan-like school administration. However, research for Switzerland using a time-series panel of sub-federal school expenditure and class size detects no such effect. These findings are in line with previous analyses that identify efficiency gains in the provision of public goods for Switzerland.
In diesem Artikel wird Thünen's Bild vom wirtschaftenden Menschen analysiert, das als Gegensatz zu den damals herrschenden ökonomischen und sozialen Gegebenheiten als normatives Postulat konstruiert wurde. Darauf aufbauend, wird das ökonomische (Standort-)Modell des isolierten Staates als als Vision eines idealen Staates begriffen. [....] In diesem Lichte werden auch einerseits die Rolle des ökonomischen Gleichgewichtszustandes in Thünens Welt- und Geschichtsbild betrachtet und andererseits die Frage nach dem natürlichen Lohn der Atbeiter gesehen. Schliesslich werden Handlungsanweisungen und Konsequenzen für den in der Realiät wirtschaftenden Menschen dargestellt, wie sie Thünen in beiden Teilen seines Werkes fordert.
