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This paper examines the role of institutions and actors in adjustment to economic internationalization in Ireland. The argument is that path-dependent development does not preclude institutional innovation; but that there are limits to the politics of redistribution and collective consumption within a liberal economy. The growing integration of international markets raises the question of how, and to what extent, domestic political processes within states continue to matter. The thesis that markets force a ?race to the bottom? and the destruction of the welfare state has been discredited; there is continuing scope for diversity. Two patterns have commonly been identified. Continental European countries cluster together around politically coordinated adjustment strategies, while the liberal, Anglo-American countries adopt ever more market-driven responses. The new EU member states in central Europe and the Balkans have been expected to join the latter category. However, a third overlooked possibility exists ? that market-oriented adjustment might continue to be strongly politically mediated, in line with expectations about the incentives facing small open economies, even in liberal economies. The excellent economic performance of the Irish, Dutch and Danish economies during the 1990s belies the suggestion that neo-liberal policies produce the best outcomes. Yet Ireland is very different from these two, as it is a ?liberal market economy?, while they are ?coordinated? or ?social market economies?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil exports account for a major increase in GDP in many African states. Modernization theory would suggest that such increases in wealth should result in shifts toward more equitable distribution of resources and republican democracy. Empirical literature shows a correlation between increased wealth and democracy. Yet, oil exporters fail to acheive economic growth and democracy. This paper questions the premise that oil blcks democracy and argues that longevity of an authoritarian ruler has an influence on a willingness and capacity to mediate interests in society. The paper argues that longer an autocrat is in power, the greater his incentives to liberalize his political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the BEEPS survey of about 4000 firms in transition economies developed by the World Bank and the EBRD, this paper tests hypotheses concerning the causes of the political behavior of firms in transition economies. The evidence supports the hypothesis that clientelist relations between firms and the state, which have been shown to have detrimental effects on economic growth and income equality elsewhere in the world, exist in many transition economies. The results suggest that the corruption and crony capitalism observed in many transition countries is generated by firms and state officials who find themselves involved in an interdependent political and economic relationship. In a system of political clientelism, firms provide political support to politicians, and in exchange politicians distribute economic benefits to client firms. High-level corruption in transition economies is generated by personalistic, hierarchical, asymmetrical, clientelist links between firms and government officials rather than the lobbying activity of pressure groups acting on a weak state. Ordered logit analysis of the determinants of firm overdue payments, or payment arrears, shows that large, privatized firms hold higher payment arrears in clientelist countries, while these factors have no impact on arrears in countries with low levels of clientelism. The evidence suggests that the extent of political clientelism has a major impact on corruption and economic policy, regardless of the extent of private ownership in the economy. This analysis of the political behavior of firms and the economic policy environment has important policy implications for all countries implementing market-oriented economic reform and attempting to reduce corruption. Questions concerning the treatment of state-owned versus privatized firms in clientelist countries will be pursued in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the field of political economy scholars are attempting to assess the impact of globalization on systems of governance and corporate behavior. Increased global competition is generally seen as pressuring companies to increase the flexibility of their manufacturing processes in order to respond faster to market developments. Since labor laws and union strength would seem to limit the options available to corporations, many scholars argue for the loosening of labor laws and a decline in the power of unions. Although it appears that efficiency within the global marketplace can best be achieved through policies promoting external labor market flexibility, firms attempting to implement post-Fordist restructuring programs which stress worker empowerment through functional and cross-functional teams would seem to find the greatest support for such endeavors in an institutional environment which supports internal labor market flexibility. Such restructuring programs enable firms to more quickly adapt production processes to new demands, while also providing them the capability to improve product development times. The former occurs through teamwork between line workers, while the latter occurs through cross-functional teamwork between employees in production and those in research and development. Too often scholars seem to create broad categories which do not probe the manner in which specific institutions impact corporate behavior. Hence, Scholars studying the impact of globalization on corporate behavior need to adequately specify not only the types of institutions which impact corporate operations but also how they impact the implementation of specific corporate programs. After demonstrating how the relevant literature fails to directly link institutions to corporate behavior, this paper attempts specify the types of institutions which effect the ability of corporations to implement post-Fordist restructuring programs. It argues that labor laws, training systems, unions and employer associations have a substantive impact on the ability of corporations to implement such restructuring programs. Only with this level of understanding would scholars be able to make substantive policy recommendations. The final section of this paper discusses how these institutions impact the ability of corporations in Germany and the United States to implement such programs. Paradoxically this paper concludes that these institutions in German foster the type of internal labor market flexibility needed for such programs to succeed. If these institutions are not altered, firms in the United States will be forced to pursue low-road approaches, such as downsizing and outsourcing, which put downward pressure on wages, thereby increasing inequality. A high-road approach which strengthened labor laws, unions, training institutions and employer associations would enable corporations in the United States to create the type of institutional environment which firms need to retain workers and invest in the type of skills needed for these employees to function in genuinely flatter and more flexible organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of economies of scale in government, trade openness, preference heterogeneity, transactions costs, regime type, and world culture on the territorial size of states. No one variable appears to explain the trend fully. Our tentative conclusion is that the rise in state size during the 19th century is the product of a growing number of federal democracies, which tend to be large, and the decline in average size during the 20th century, in turn, is produced by the increased number of unitary democracies, which tend to be small. This "uncaused cause," however, begs for further investigation. We speculate that increasing economies of scale in the 19th century and the success of the "American model" led to the rise of large federal democracies, while economic liberalism and diffusing norms of political freedom allowed unitary democracies to prosper in the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I develop and test a model which suggests that coordination of wage bargaining and transparency of central bank procedures are two alternative mechanisms that can increase the speed with which expectations adjust to changes in central bank policy. I consider this for an economy where actions of individual wage earners depend on ‘higher order beliefs’ - expectations of what the ‘average’ wage setter believes about the economy. As a result, wage setters face a problem analogous to the ‘beauty contest’ for investments described by Keynes (1936). In this context when central banks change policies they face a problem not only of convincing each individual member of the public that a change has occurred; they also need to ensure that the policy change becomes common knowledge. Decisions by central banks to publish their economic forecasts or records of deliberations and efforts by wage bargainers to coordinate their activities and pool private information can both increase the speed with which higher order beliefs adjust to a policy change. I test these propositions by considering output-inflation tradeoffs in the 1990s for 21 OECD economies. The theoretical predictions of this paper and supporting empirical results suggest that in a euro zone which lacks centralized wage bargaining institutions there may be significant benefits from central bank transparency [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main body of this paper addresses one aspect of the dual transition dilemma, that of which factors facilitate economic reform under democratic conditions. Drawing upon works in political science and economics, I outline three models to capture the relationships among three groups of arguments explaining variation in economic transformation, initial conditions, domestic factors and external influences. Political and economic data for 19 post-communist transition economies are collected. In brief, I find that in countries with high democracy levels, increased inclusiveness of the political institutions is associated with a decrease in socially disruptive reforms, and an increase in reforms which benefit everyone in the society. The relationships are reversed for autocracies and countries with lower democratic scores. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the BEEPS survey of about 4000 firms in transition economies developed by the World Bank and the EBRD, this paper tests hypotheses concerning the causes of the political behavior of firms in transition economies. The evidence supports the hypothesis that clientelist relations between firms and the state, which have been shown to have detrimental effects on economic growth and income equality elsewhere in the world, exist in many transition economies. The corruption and crony capitalism' observed in many transition countries is generated by firms and state officials who find themselves involved in an interdependent political and economic relationship. High-level corruption in transition economies is generated by personalistic, hierarchical, asymmetrical, clientelist links between firms and government officials rather than the lobbying activity of pressure groups acting on a weak state. In particular, firms tend to engage in corruption in countries with high levels of corruption in order to escape pressure from creditors, because of the scarcity of financial information from their customers, and because of the need for special connections with bank officials to obtain financing. Different factors affect the political behavior of firms in countries with low levels of corruption. The evidence suggests that the extent of political clientelism has a major impact on corruption and economic policy, regardless of the extent of private ownership in the economy. This analysis of the political behavior of firms and the economic policy environment has important policy implications for all countries implementing market-oriented economic reform and attempting to reduce corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Making governments accountable is one of the hottest issues in assessing the quality of democracy in both advanced and developing countries. Following Przeworski et al. (1999), the paper defines accountability as a mechanism in which incumbent governments are reelected when they conduct good politics but lose office when they do not conduct good politics. One problem is that the incumbents can be reelected even if they do not conduct good politics. The paper examines this problem. It hypothesizes why relevant office alternations do not occur, conducts cross-national statistical analyses, and then empirically examines several cases of selected OECD countries from the postwar era to the present. Two independent variables will be examined: (1) whether production regimes have strong or weak market coordination (Soskice, 1999), and (2) whether party systems contain sharp or moderate polarization. Political economies of advanced societies will be categorized into four groups according to the above variables. My hypothesis is that incumbent governments can be unaccountable when they have strongly coordinated market economies combined with strong party polarization because under such conditions the incumbents may well become ?gThe only game in town?h with regard to economic growth, making voters lose any other alternative. The lack of office alternation leads to electoral stalemates on the part of voters in general and eventually reveals limits of electoral democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that fertility in industrialized countries is strongly affected by a woman’s ability to balance family and career. In liberal market economies such as the U.S. where women have access to labor markets but not to socialized child care, career success comes at the price of fertility: women who make the most money have the fewest children. Fertility in coordinated market economies is divided into the high fertility Scandinavian countries, where the government supports child care and public sector employment of women, and the low fertility countries elsewhere were corporatist wage bargaining have largely left women out of the protected core work force. Global economic integration has reduced fertility in the gender-friendly Scandinavian countries to levels close to the rest of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]