It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, March 03, 2023
Study finds political campaigns may change the choices of voters – but not their policy views
A new paper in The Quarterly Journal of Economics,published by Oxford University Press, measures the overall impact of electoral campaigns and finds that televised debates have little effect on the formation of voter choice. Information received from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens, matters more.
Researchers and pundits have long debated the impact of political campaigns. One view is that the weeks immediately preceding elections are a crucial period. Campaign information can help voters assess the performance of incumbent politicians, compare the qualities and positions of all candidates, and perhaps even reconsider their policy preferences. But some researchers argue that campaigns have minimal effects because most people decide on their candidate long before the election.
Researchers here used survey data from 62 elections in ten countries (Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) since 1952 to study how voters make their choice. The data included 253,000 observations. The authors looked at the difference between whom voters said they said they would vote for, before the election, and whom they said they voted for, after the election.
The investigation revealed that the fraction of people with identical vote declarations before and after the election increased by 17 percentage points over the 60 days leading up to the election, from a baseline of 71%. On the last day before the election, 12% of voters still do not know (or will not say) whom they will vote for or state a different vote intention than their ultimate choice. In total, 17% to 29% of voters make up their minds during the last two months of campaigns. This large increase in individual vote choice consistency is associated with a 5-percentage point reduction in the distance between predicted and final vote shares: voters who make up their minds in this period significantly affect the electoral results.
Within a given election, younger and less educated voters are more influenced by campaign information, and voters who identify strongly with a party are less so. Changes in vote choice are driven by changes in voters’ beliefs on the candidates’ positions and qualities as well as changes in the issues voters find most important. By contrast, their policy preferences remain stable throughout the campaign.
The researchers here also investigated evidence on the relative importance of different sources of information. Information from televised debates had little effect on voter decisions. Shocks such as natural and technological disasters, which occur independently of the campaigns, did not appear to change voter decisions either. These results suggest that information acquired throughout the campaign from sources like news stories or friends is more important.
The authors were surprised to find that TV debates – for all the interest they generate, the large viewing audience they draw, and the many media commentaries they provoke – do not appear to change voting behavior. Overall, the results suggest that even if voters sometimes seem relatively uninformed and uninterested, their vote choices actually depend on extensive information beyond just debates.
“Since our data cover 62 elections, they enable us to compare the importance of electoral campaigns in different settings,” said the paper’s lead author, Vincent Pons. “Campaigns play a decisive role in all periods and all countries we study. But interestingly, the fraction of voters changing their minds in the last two months before the election is much smaller in the U.S. than in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and all other democracies in our sample.”
Direct correspondence to: Vincent Pons Associate Professor of Business Administration Harvard Business School Morgan Hall 289 Soldiers Field Boston, MA 02163 vpons@hbs.edu
To request a copy of the study, please contact: Daniel Luzer daniel.luzer@oup.com
IMAGE: WHILE HARDLY ANYONE WOULD DISPUTE THAT THEIR OWN CAT SUBJECTIVELY FEELS PAIN, THERE ARE MANY SPECIES FOR WHICH PEOPLE ARE UNCERTAIN: DO BIRDS, FISH, INSECTS AND WORMS HAVE CONSCIOUS PERCEPTION?view more
CREDIT: RUB, MARQUARD
There are reasons to assume that not only humans but also some non-human species of animal have conscious perception. Which species have consciousness and how the subjective experience of various species could differ is being investigated by Professor Albert Newen and PhD student Leonard Dung from the Institute for Philosophy II at Ruhr University Bochum. To do this, they characterise consciousness with ten different dimensions and work out which behaviours indicate the presence of each of these consciousness dimensions. They describe their approach in the academic journal “Cognition”, published online on 21 February 2023.
Consciousness is not like a light switch
There is a debate within research as to which animals have consciousness. There are also various views as to how consciousness can be expressed. “According to one view, consciousness is like a light switch, which is either on or off: a species either has consciousness or it does not,” explains Albert Newen. A more refined idea is that consciousness can be thought of as a dimmer switch: it can exist in varying degrees.
Albert Newen and Leonard Dung do not agree with either of these theories. According to them, ten dimensions, or aspects, of consciousness can be distinguished, which cannot necessarily be placed in a ranking. These include, for example, a rich emotional inner life, self-awareness and or conscious perception. “It is not necessarily worthwhile to ask whether a mouse has more consciousness than an octopus,” clarifies Albert Newen. “You may get a different answer, depending on the aspect of consciousness that you are looking at.”
The researchers from Bochum suggest distinguishing between strong and weak indicators of consciousness and allocating each of these to certain aspects of consciousness. “We hope to ultimately make it possible to measure how the subjective experience of various species differs between species and compared to humans,” summarises Leonard Dung.
Strong and weak indicators of consciousness
According to the authors, the simple processing of sensory stimuli is not an indicator of consciousness. Studies of humans with brain damage show that two pathways in the brain have to interact for conscious perception, one of which processes information about the spatial position of objects and the other is responsible for the conscious classification of objects. If one of these pathways is damaged, people can correctly interact with objects – for example, inserting a letter into a letterbox – but without perceiving the letterbox as such. “As a result, the mere reception of and reaction to sensory stimuli, which we find in all living organisms, is not a noteworthy indicator of consciousness,” says Leonard Dung.
However, more complex forms of perception also occur in the animal kingdom. For example, monkeys, parrots and dogs are able to identify or categorise perceived objects as individual things. A grey parrot called Alex was able to simultaneously categorise an object as red, round and metallic. Border Collies can learn the names of up to 1,000 objects and identify and fetch certain objects. Newen and Dung describe these abilities of conscious perception as a weak indicator of consciousness.
A strong indicator of conscious perception can, however, be provided by an experiment in which a person puts on a pair of computer glasses and is shown a house in the left eye and a face in the right eye. They do not see a mixture, but instead only see the house for a while, then the face, then back to the house and so on. Analogous experiments now also exist for animals, enabling what they are consciously perceiving to be tested.
Episodic memory is a strong indicator
The authors also see episodic memory, i.e. memories of previous life events, their time and their place, as a strong indicator of consciousness. It is well documented in rats and some species of bird.
Newen and Dung argue that consciousness is closely linked to complex memory and learning abilities and with perception. In order to understand consciousness, it would be helpful if behavioural observations could be combined with neuroscientific data, which is already possible in individual cases. “However, as we do not know enough about the brain basis of conscious experience, even in humans, and we are aiming to compare widely differing species with a very different brain organisation, a behavioural comparison in ten dimensions is the best approach that we have for the time being,” concludes Albert Newen.
For the first time in two decades, there are more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world, but the future is not entirely bleak. This is shown in this year's democracy report from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem Institute) at the University of Gothenburg.
A democratic decline has taken place globally, and an increasing number of people are living in closed autocracies. The report that is now being released shows that this trend is continuing, and that the world has not been more anti-democratic in 35 years.
“The level of democracy enjoyed by the average world citizen in 2022 is back to 1986 levels. This means that 72 percent of the world's population, 5.7 billion people, live under authoritarian rule”, according to Staffan I. Lindberg, Director of the V-Dem Institute.
The democratic decline has been most dramatic in the Pacific region, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. But the number of countries in the world that are currently experiencing democratic setbacks, or autocratization, has greatly increased over the past ten years – from 13 to 42 countries between 2002–2022, which is the highest figure measured by V-Dem to date.
More closed autocracies than liberal democracies Generally, countries experience autocratization when authoritarian political movements gain direct influence over governmental policy, where they can dismantle democratic institutions: free media, civil society, independent organizations, and the judicial system. Once this has begun, in the vast majority of cases, it eventually leads to the dismantling of democracy.
The global advance of closed autocracies is also highlighted in this year's report. For the first time in two decades, the world has more closed autocracies than liberal democracies.
“28 percent of the world's population, 2.2 billion people, now live in closed autocracies compared to 13 percent, 1 billion people, who live in liberal democracies.”
There is hope However, some countries have managed to return after long periods of democratic dismantling. Bolivia, Moldova, Ecuador, the Maldives, North Macedonia, Slovenia, South Korea, and Zambia have all succeeded in reversing their autocratic evolution.
“The fact that eight democracies that were in a period of autocratization have stopped that process and “bounced back” is uplifting news for democracy. It is rare to see countries that can make a U-turn. The countries that have succeeded in doing have brought about a pro-democracy mobilization, they have re-established an objective judicial system, deposed authoritarian leaders, introduced free and fair elections, worked to reduce corruption, and rejuvenated civil society”, says Staffan I. Lindberg.
Presentation of the Report The report will be presented during an online seminar on Thursday, March 2, 2023, 15:00-16:00 CET. All are welcome to join. The seminar will be livestreamed via V-Dem's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/vdeminstitute
The report Defiance in the Face of Autocratization is available for download on the V-dem website from 9.00EST/15.00CET: https://v-dem.net/. To obtain the report earlier, contact Maria Verkhovtseva: e-mail: maria.verkhovtseva@gu.se, telephone: +46 (0) 31–786 3043.
Fact V-Dem provides the world's largest database on democracy with 31 million data points for 202 countries covering the years 1789–2022. Almost 4,000 researchers and other country experts from 180 countries are associated with the institute, which measures hundreds of different indicators of democracy. V-Dem is part of the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. Read more on V-Dem's website: https://v-dem.net/
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
Revisiting the mechanisms of mid-Tertiary uplift of the NE Tibetan plateau
A joint research team led by Dr. WEI Hong-Hong at Institute of Tibetan plateau of Chinese Academy of Science has just published a study on mechanisms for mid-Tertiary uplifting of the NE Tibetan plateau in National Science Review.
A number of mechanisms have been advanced to account for creation of present-day topography of northeast Tibet, which manifests itself as a mosaic comprising plateaus, mountains and various-scale basins, such the Hoh Xil plateau, Qaidam basin, Qilian Mountains, and many intermontane basins. Most of previous work ascribed topographic development of NE Tibet to crustal contraction. It, however, remains perplexing how the crust deformed throughout the Cenozoic.
Based on a synthesis of available geological and geophysical data and geologic observations, it is confirmed that the Hoh Xil and West Qinling had experienced surface uplift and broad planation since ~27 Ma. A marked stratigraphic break or unconformity, which separates Paleogene and Neogene strata, registered the uplifting event. Surface uplift was previously attributed to crustal contraction in mid-Tertiary timespan. This study, however, reveals that strata below and above the unconformity are basically parallel in the West Qinling, thereby negating the postulation of pre-Neogene crustal contraction in that region. Also interesting is Paleogene–Neogene uninterrupted successions in the Qaidam basin, indicative of persistent subsidence and sedimentation in mid-Tertiary timespan. Obviously, differential crustal vertical motion happened in different areas of NE Tibet.
Vigorous volcanic eruption took place in the Miocene, with magma being sourced from the middle–lower crust and mantle. Volcanism occurred merely in the Hoh Xil and West Qinling, whereas the Qaidam basin is devoid of volcanic rocks. Various models are suggested to explain generation of magma of differing types, but existing explanations can hardly reconcile coeval occurrences of diverse tectonic processes.
Coincidence of crustal vertical motion and volcanic eruption in space and time implicates that the two processes should have been governed by same mechanism. This study proposes that small-scale edge-driven mantle convection might have been operating at the transition from orogenic and cratonic domains. The convection is generated due to resistance to northward asthenospheric flow by thicker cratonic lithosphere. This mechanism provides satisfactory explanations for some prominent geologic phenomena. Edge-driven convection led to upwelling of asthenospheric hot materials that not only vertically raised the crust but also triggered magmatism in the lithosphere of the Hoh Xil and West Qinling orogenic regions. The Qaidam basin possesses thicker cratonic lithosphere and therefore avoids convectional effect.
Tectonic settings changed dramatically about 15 Ma when crustal shortening and thickening dominated the NE Tibetan plateau, as manifested by folding and faulting of Tertiary strata in the Qaidam basin and rapid rising of surrounding mountains. Gravitational collapse and spreading of Tibetan plateau interior is likely responsible for horizontal tectonic push that resulted in upper-crustal contraction of peripheral areas in late Cenozoic time.
See the article:
Revisiting the mechanisms of mid-Tertiary uplift of the NE Tibetan plateau
IMAGE: A QUEEN OF THE SPECIES BOMBUS TERRESTRIS WHICH IS ONE OF THE BUMBLEBEES THAT USUALLY FLY EARLIEST IN SPRING. THE SEASON IS NOW ABOUT 14 DAYS EARLIER IN SIMPLE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES THAN A CENTURY AGO DUE TO A WARMER CLIMATE AND A CHANGED HABITAT.view more
CREDIT: MARIA BLASI ROMERO/LUND UNIVERSITY
With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites. But they are flying earlier in the year, as a result of a warmer climate and a changing agricultural landscape, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden.
“We risk losing additional bumblebee species, and having less pollination of crops and wild plants”, says researcher Maria Blasi Romero at Lund University.
When spring arrives and the ground warms up, bumblebee queens wake up from hibernation. Contrary to workers and males, queens are the only bumblebees that survive the winter, and they spend a couple of weeks finding a place to nest, where they can lay eggs and start a colony.
However, rising temperatures mean that they wake up earlier in the year. The new study shows that in Sweden, the first flight occurs on average five days earlier than twenty years ago.
“Across Sweden, we see that the increased temperatures due to climate change clearly affect when the queens wake up and fly to find a new nest”, says researcher Maria Blasi Romero.
It is not only the temperature that has an impact. The researchers have used the Lund Biological Museum's collection to examine bumblebee queens as far back as 117 years ago, in different areas of southern Sweden. This data shows that the first bumblebee flight in intensively farmed landscapes now takes place about fourteen days earlier than over a century ago.
Reduced biodiversity with modern agriculture
The major change in the examined landscapes during the past century is the loss of grassland habitats, such as meadows and permanently grazed pastures. Today, large agricultural fields dominate and often only a few different crops are grown. This has led to a general decline of farmland biodiversity.
Bumblebee queens leaving their hibernation much earlier nowadays is therefore likely due to a warmer climate, a lack of food during the flight period, and more varying microclimatic conditions in today's agricultural landscape compared with the more diverse landscapes of older times.
The researchers have focused on ten bumblebee species and found that the species that already used to fly earliest in the season have become even earlier flyers, while the species that emerge later in the season have not changed their flight season. There is a risk that this leads to a poor match between the activity periods of flowering plants and bumblebees, and that bumblebees do not get enough food.
“We see a clear risk that more bumblebee species are at risk of extinction locally, especially the species that usually emerge later in the summer. This could also lead to a decline in the number of bumblebees overall and that would have consequences for the pollination of crops and the functioning of ecosystems. Bumblebees are important pollinators, especially in northern latitudes such as in Scandinavia”, says researcher Anna S Persson.
The study highlights several measures that could reduce the effects of climate warming on pollinators and increase their access to flowering plants. A few examples are:
- Preservation of natural grasslands, such as natural pastures.
- Late season mowing at roadsides, after the flowering period.
- Flower strips and hedges designed in a way that favors pollinators.
- Increased sowing of clover-rich leys, that are partly allowed to flower.
The research is partly based on data on bumblebee queens collected up to 117 years ago.
University College Dublin (UCD) Researcher Dr Alexander Kondakov launches his new book Violent Affections (2022, UCL Press) in UCD at 5pm, 2 March 2023.
Violent Affections reveals the techniques of power that have emboldened hate crimes against queer people in Russia over the last decade.
In 2013, Russia enacted the so-called “gay propaganda” law – a censorship legislation banning LGBTQI-related content from circulation and LGBTQI activists from organising public events. Through analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence before and after this law was introduced, the book draws attention to the devastating consequences of anti-queer rhetoric: murders, injuries, kidnappings and other violent crimes, which doubled after the law was introduced.
Author and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Sociology, Dr Kondakov says: “It is commonly assumed that a decision to commit violence is taken individually by the perpetrators. In my analysis, however, I link that decision directly to political homophobia. I suggest that in every individual decision to kill or injure a gay person, there is a share that belongs to government officials who disseminate hate.”
The book explores the social mechanisms that impact anti-queer violence as evidenced in the reviewed criminal cases, connecting this to the political violence aimed at queer lives more generally. By bringing to light stories of LGBTQI people in Russia, this important research raises awareness of the senseless violence taking place, and illustrates the dire impacts of discriminatory censorship laws.
Violent Affections is praised as 'immediately relevant in the contemporary period of misinformation campaigns and the influence of technology in the production of truth. Violent Affections demonstrates the interweaving of government, law, and society from a discursive technological standpoint founded on centuries of sociohistorical knowledge.' (Journal of Homosexuality, January 2023).
In this volume, Kondakov expands upon queer theory and affect theory to conceptualise what is referred to as neo-disciplinary power, developing an original explanation of how contemporary power relations are changing from those of late modernity as envisioned by Foucault’s Panopticon to neo-disciplinary power relations of a much more fragmented, fluid and unstructured kind – the Memeticon.
The book launch takes place on Thursday 2 March 2023 at 5pm in The Campus Bookshop, UCD, featuring a discussion with the author and comments from Jennifer Schweppe (University of Limerick), one of Ireland's leading scholars of hate crime. Launch tickets: here, hard copies of the book will be available to purchase.
The Frontiers of Knowledge Award goes to Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini for transforming political economy into a modern, empirical, interdisciplinary science
The BBVA Foundation recognizes their fundamental contributions to studying how political institutions and processes shape economic policies and outcomes and how economic factors, in turn, shape political institutions
IMAGE: TIMOTHY J. BESLEY, WINNER OF THE BBVA FOUNDATION FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE AWARD IN ECONOMICS, FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT.view more
CREDIT: BBVA FOUNDATION
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management has gone in this fifteenth edition to Timothy J. Besley (London School of Economics), Torsten Persson (Institute of International Economic Studies, Stockholm University) and Guido Tabellini (Bocconi University,) for “illuminating the connections between the economic and political worlds” and “transforming the field of political economy,” in the words of the committee’s citation. The three awardees, together with the late Alberto Alesina (Harvard University), have employed both theoretical and empirical tools to examine “how political institutions and processes shape economic policies and outcomes on one hand, and how economic factors shape political institutions on the other,” contributing decisively to shape the field of modern political economy.
The work of Besley, Persson and Tabellini, the citation concludes, “has enriched economics by drawing important connections between the economy and politics,” and “has spawned a flourishing literature in several areas of the social sciences.”
An evidence-based field of study
The organization of states and their institutional structures in relation to the socioeconomic realities of their citizens has been an object of study since at least the mid-18th century, led by thinkers such as Adam Smith or David Ricardo. But these great theorists of classical economics had to make do with hypothetical cases and constructs, having no firm data to rely on, a situation that endured until the ascension of statistics in the 20th century, as John Maynard Keynes complained in his day.
In recent decades, with information more readily available, the new political economy pioneered by the awardees has brought with it two main innovations: the primacy of empirical inquiry and the use of the tools and techniques of modern economic science. Their research, which has been widely cited by social scientists of every branch, country and school of thought, forms the core of a whole new field of study — Modern Political Economy — that exhibits all the clarity of robust theory applied to solid, evidence-driven analysis. Proof of its success is a statistic quoted by Francesco Trebbi, Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the nominators of the new laureates, to the effect that “around one tenth of top journal publications in economics every year (according to the NBER Political Economy program meeting in April 2019)” build squarely on their approach.
For Mónica MartÃnez Bravo, a professor in the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI), the awardees’ work stands out in this thriving field “for leading and lighting the way for other researchers to follow, proposing and developing new aspects and approaches to unravel the linkages between politics and economics. Beyond simply seeking to understand the sociopolitical context for public policymaking, they model the behavior of agents – citizens, institutions and organizations – and make it the centerpiece of the theoretical framework. And then they develop empirical tests to find whether these theories are supported by the facts.”
There is a broadening consensus around both the importance of institutional quality for economic development, and the potentially damaging effects of inequality on economic growth. In the last 15 years these ideas have found their way into the reports of multilateral organizations like the World Bank. Ideas drawn from the increasingly influential field of modern political economy, and elaborated by the awardees in a series of publications outstanding in their scope, quality and impact.
The first wave of the new political economy
In the mid-1970s, Torsten Persson (Stockholm, 1954) was dividing his time between higher education and his military training. He initially had his sights set on studying medicine, but changed tack in light of the experience of talking to his fellow soldiers and a visit to late Francoist Spain: “I thought I needed to widen my views on the world around me, to try and understand society, and that led me to economics and political science.”
Around the same time, in Italy, Guido Tabellini was becoming convinced that “big mistakes” were being made in economic policy: “We had a very high inflation rate, were accumulating large government debt and going through a financial crisis. Not because the economy was weak, but because policymakers were enacting very bad policies. And so, for many of us, trying to understand why those bad policies were chosen over more efficient alternatives was something that sparked our curiosity.” Among the many was his friend Alberto Alesina, another of the figures behind the birth of the new political economy who sadly died in 2020.
Tabellini and Persson would discover their shared motivations when their respective academic careers took them to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1989-1990. Both believed traditional analysis had been hamstrung because it looked in one direction only; at the way that policymaking acted on the real economy. What was needed, they felt, was to dig deeper and ask how economic policies were actually arrived at, how they were chosen and how they reflected the institutional environment in which they were formed: “In what would become the first wave of the political economy revolution,” Professor Persson relates, “the punchline, if you like, was that it was political and economic forces together that determined which policies got enacted in a given country.”
The result of their exchanges was the 1990 book Macroeconomic Policy, Credibility and Politics, which Persson views as the cornerstone of modern political economy, followed by talks at congresses and in lecture halls where they continued to work up their ideas. In the year 2000 they published Political Economics. Explaining Economic Policy, now a standard in its field. In both these works the authors combine insights from the macroeconomic literature on the time-consistency of policy with the theories of public choice and rational choice, as well as game theory, to explore how politics interacts with the economy in the shaping of economic policies.
In their later book, The Economic Effects of Constitutions, published in 2005, they used long time series for a number of countries to study the linkages between constitutional structures — whether a country has a presidential or parliamentary system or if the electoral rules are majoritarian, proportional or representative — and economic policymaking in areas like taxation, income redistribution programs or the provision of public goods. What they pursued in their research was a deep understanding of the institutional environment in each study state, “and all this information was there in the data,” Persson explains.
From theory to empirical evidence
At these early stages the field advanced in parallel with economics as a whole: from theory to empirical inquiry. “Many assumptions of the rational expectations theory are not applicable in real circumstances,” Tabellini points out. “So in political economics, a lot of attention is now going to how beliefs and opinions are formed. And to do that we need to exploit insights from psychology and sociology, to understand how our value systems largely influence behaviors like, for instance, the way we vote.”
Observation and empirical analysis would thus take center stage, backed by interaction with other disciplines. Political science, for instance, had elucidated how the party system in a given state tends to favor single-party or coalition governments. Persson and Tabellini expanded on this insight to show that these same trends could determine such key economic variables as levels of public spending or public debt, since a country with frequent coalition governments will lean towards greater government spending. “Political scientists had not got that far,” Tabellini remarks, “while, on the economics side, little thought had gone to how policy decisions reflect the incentives of the policymakers.”
In an extensive body of research they have found that “a clear separation of the executive and legislative powers subject to proper checks and balances is a way to prevent the abuse of power and to guarantee the smooth functioning of a democratic system,” in the words of the citation, or argued that a country’s economic growth policies can be structurally undermined by inequalities in wealth and income distribution.
The pillars of prosperity
In parallel, Timothy Besley had embarked on his own line of research at Princeton University, informed in part by Persson and Tabellini’s work as the LSE professor recalls: “In my early work I studied the impact of having term limits on politicians. In some countries, politicians have to retire, so U.S. presidents, for instance, can only serve two terms and then they have to leave. So [with Anne Case] we looked at the impact of term limits on incentives, and found that when a politician is subject to a term limit, they’re clearly not going to be thinking beyond the end of their time in office.” One consequence of this attitude was that public spending and debt rose at a higher rate.
That same year, in 1995, Besley was invited to a conference Torsten Persson was organizing in Italy in a bid to bring together researchers with an interest in this young and burgeoning field. Shortly after, the three awardees formed an interdisciplinary research group that would meet two or three times a year, and professors Besley and Persson began work on their co-publications.
Among the most far-reaching was their book Pillars of Prosperity (2011) examining he determinants and consequences of what they called “state capacity.” The three pillars referred to are, in Besley’s words: “firstly, the power to raise taxes; secondly, the ability to make and enforce laws; and, thirdly, the state’s capacity to spend wisely on things that make their citizens’ lives better, be it health systems, education systems or infrastructure.”
These three pillars, his research finds, are closely interrelated: “If you’re going to make your citizens’ lives better by providing healthcare, for instance, you need to build collective capacity. And that links to the power to raise taxes, because citizens are only willing to be taxed if the revenues are used wisely, to create, say, improvements in their lives.” Not only interrelated, then, but mutually reinforcing. “It’s not God-given that you can tax the population,” Professor Persson adds. “You need to build institutions in order to have a well-working tax system. You can’t just decide to do it. It requires purposeful action and looking for investments on behalf of the state. So we wanted to study under what circumstances a state would have appropriate motives to invest in its development.”
Besley’s subsequent research, building on the three pillars of prosperity theory, helps explain why some countries have failed to deliver development and remain fragile at best. He talks in this respect about three types of state: those whose state capacity is strong, with the pillars of prosperity in place, which are generally referred to as successful or common interest states; a second group whose regimes are perpetuated through the use of force and repression. They may display some of the defining characteristics of the pillars of prosperity, but can only sustain them by means of powerful armies, police forces subservient to their interests, changes in political mechanisms as their needs dictate, and censorship and control of the media. The term used for them is special interest states. And finally, we have the weak states, those that have failed even to establish long-run systems. Rulers come and go and they have not built state capacities to any meaningful extent.
In its citation, the committee also singles out Timothy Besley’s work on the role played by property rights and other institutions, like labor market regulation or political accountability, in the economic outcomes of developing countries. “It’s a central feature of modern political economy,” he explains. “Capitalist market systems need a way of establishing and maintaining property rights. If you have property rights, you can create incentives to invest that translate into economic growth. And so, you have economic benefits from a state that is able to build legal capacity.” Plus, as Tabellini says of tax systems, if the state sees it as good and necessary to establish or uphold property rights, it needs to have a firm grasp of the kind of politics that support them. “It’s not enough to say they’re a good idea. You have to understand how to actually bring them about and ensure their enforcement.”
Nominators
Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini were nominated for the award by Robin Burgess and Maitreesh Ghatak, economics professors at the London School of Economics (United Kingdom); Hannes Mueller, a tenured researcher at the Institute for Economic Analysis, CSIC (Spain); and Francesco Trebbi, a professor in the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley (United States).
Laureate bio notes
Timothy Besley (Kesteven, United Kingdom, 1960) earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford (1987). After teaching at Princeton University (United States) from 1989 to 1995, he joined the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is now School Professor of Economics and Political Science and W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics. Besley is one of nine members of the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission, and has served as an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. A former president of the International Economic Association, the European Economic Association, the Econometric Society and the Royal Econometric Society, he has also been co-editor of American Economic Review and is currently on the editorial board of Economica,
Torsten Persson, winner of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management.
Torsten Persson (Stockholm, Sweden, 1954) received his PhD in Economics from Stockholm University (1982), where he is currently Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professor at the Institute of International Economic Studies. He is also a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics (UK) and Director of the Institutions, Organizations and Growth program of global research network CIFAR. He has held visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton and Berkeley universities, among others, and is a former president of both the Econometric Society and the European Economic Association. As well as chairing the Scientific Advisory Board to the Swedish Treasury, Persson has served as associate editor of the European Economic Review and the Journal of Economic Growth, and as an elected trustee of the Nobel Foundation.
Guido Tabellini, winner of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management.
Guido Tabellini (Turin, Italy, 1956) completed a PhD in Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1984. Between the years 1985 and 1994, his teaching and research career took him to Stanford University, UCLA, and, on his return to Italy, the universities of Cagliari and Brescia. In 1994 he moved to Bocconi University, initially as Director (to 2002) and later President (2002-2008) of the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research. A former rector of the university (2008-2012), he is now Professor of Economics and holder of the Intesa Sanpaolo Chair in Political Economics at Bocconi, as well as serving as its Vice President and President of its Institute of European Policymaking. Tabellini is the current past president of the Econometric Society, as well as a former president of the European Economic Association.
Economics, Finance and Management committee and evaluation support panel
The committee in this category was chaired by Eric S. Maskin, Adams University Professor at Harvard University (United States) and Nobel Laureate in Economics, with Manuel Arellano, Professor of Economics in the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI) of Banco de España acting as secretary. Remaining members were SirRichard Blundell, David Ricardo Professor of Political Economy at University College London (United Kingdom), Antonio Ciccone, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim (Germany); Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, Elihu Professor of Economics and Global Affairs at Yale University (United States); Andreu Mas-Colell, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Pompeu Fabra University and the Barcelona School of Economics (Spain); Lucrezia Reichlin, Professor of Economics at the London Business School (United Kingdom); and Fabrizio Zilibotti, Tuntex Professor of International and Development Economics at Yale University (United States).
The evaluation support panel charged with nominee pre-assessment was coordinated by Hugo RodrÃguez Mendizabal, Tenured Scientist at the Institute for Economic Analysis (IAE, CSIC) and formed by: Adelheid Holl, Tenured Scientist at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP-CCHS, CSIC); Samir Mili Chargui, Tenured Scientist at the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography (IEGD-CCHS, CSIC); and Xavier Ramos Morilla, Professor of Applied Economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB).
About the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards
The BBVA Foundation centers its activity on the promotion of world-class scientific research and cultural creation, and the recognition of talent.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, funded with 400,000 euros in each of their eight categories, recognize and reward contributions of singular impact in physics and chemistry, mathematics, biology and biomedicine, technology, environmental sciences (climate change, ecology and conservation biology), economics, social sciences, the humanities and music, privileging those that significantly enlarge the stock of knowledge in a discipline, open up new fields, or build bridges between disciplinary areas. The goal of the awards, established in 2008, is to celebrate and promote the value of knowledge as a public good without frontiers, the best instrument to take on the great global challenges of our time and expand the worldviews of individuals for the benefit of all humanity. Their eight categories address the knowledge map of the 21st century.
The BBVA Foundation has been aided in the evaluation of nominees for the Frontiers Award in Economics, Finance and Management by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the country’s premier public research organization. CSIC has a preferential role in the appointment of members to the evaluation support panels made up of leading experts in the corresponding knowledge area, who are charged with undertaking an initial assessment of the candidates proposed by numerous institutions across the world, and drawing up a reasoned shortlist for the consideration of the award committees. CSIC is also responsible for designating each committee’s chair and participates in the selection of remaining members, thus helping to ensure objectivity in the recognition of scientific excellence.
