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▪ Abstract  We review the use of macroeconomics in political science over the past 40 years. The field has been dominated by new classical theory, which leaves little room for economic policy and focuses attention on what democratic governments can do wrong in the short term. The resulting literatures on political business cycles and central bank independence are large and sophisticated, but they fail, we argue, to account for most of the observed variance in economic policies and outcomes. In the past decade, mainstream macroeconomics has moved away from new classical approaches toward New Keynesian theories with greater scope for macroeconomic policy. These new approaches, with little impact so far in political science, are reviewed and their implications drawn out. Instead of explaining short-sighted government behavior in an economy with little scope for economic policy, the key question for political science may be why governments often pursue longer-run objectives in an economy with considerable scope for economic policy.

Standard political economy models of redistribution, notably that of Meltzer and Richard (1981), fail to account for the remarkable variance in government redistribution across democracies. We develop a general model of redistribution that explains why some democratic governments are more prone to redistribute than others. We show that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the nature of political parties and the composition of governing coalitions, hence redistribution. Our argument implies (1) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, whereas center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems; and (2) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system in advanced democracies.

We review the use of macroeconomics in political science over the past 40 years. The field has been dominated by new classical theory, which leaves little room for economic policy & focuses attention on what democratic governments can do wrong in the short term. The resulting literatures on political business cycles & central bank independence are large & sophisticated, but they fail, we argue, to account for most of the observed variance in economic policies & outcomes. In the past decade, mainstream macroeconomics has moved away from new classical approaches toward New Keynesian theories with greater scope for macroeconomic policy. These new approaches, with little impact so far in political science, are reviewed & their implications drawn out. Instead of explaining short-sighted government behavior in an economy with little scope for economic policy, the key question for political science may be why governments often pursue longer-run objectives in an economy with considerable scope for economic policy. References. Adapted from the source document.

We develop a general model of redistribution and use it to account for the remarkable variance in government redistribution across democracies. We show that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the nature of political parties and the composition of governing coalitions, whether these are conceived as electoral alliances between classes or alliances between class parties. Our argument implies a) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, while center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems, and b) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system in advanced democracies. We thank Jim Alt, Klaus Armingeon, Neal Beck, David Brady, Geoffrey Brennan, Gary Cox, Thomas Cusack, Jeff Frieden, Robert Goodin, Peter Hall, Peter Lange, Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, Herbert Kitschelt, Gerard Roland, Fritz Scharpf, Ken Shepsle and participants in the Workshop on the economic consequences of democratic institutions, Department of Political Science, Duke University, April 1-2, 2005 for their many helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

As part of a review symposium on the authors' book, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2001), replies are offered to comments by Robert E. Goodin, Mark Blyth, & Matthew Watson (all, 2003). Issues raised by the commentators demonstrate the importance of the "varieties of capitalism" (VOC) literature to analyses of political economy. Three sets of issues are addressed here relevant to (1) unemployment & the service economy, (2) comparative institutional change, & (3) comparative institutional advantage. Cross-national empirical data are presented to compare developed political economies of the three types identified by the authors -- coordinated, liberal, & mixed -- in terms of changes in industrial relations, social protection, labor market flexibility, firm structure, corporate governance, earnings, & employment, 1980s-1990s. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 20 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

We provide an political-institutional explanation for the considerable variance in the extent to which democratic governments redistributes from higher to lower incomes. We show that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the composition of governing coalitions, whether these are conceived as party-forming alliances of classes or alliances between class parties. Our argument implies a) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, while center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems, and b) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system characteristics in advanced democracies.

We present a theory of social policy preferences that emphasizes the composition of people's skills. The key to our argument is that individuals who have made risky investments in skills will demand insurance against the possible future loss of income from those investments. Because the transferability of skills is inversely related to their specificity, workers with specific skills face a potentially long spell of unemployment or a significant decline in income in the event of job loss. Workers deriving most of their income from specific skills therefore have strong incentives to support social policies that protect them against such uncertainty. This is not the case for general skills workers, for whom the costs of social protection weigh more prominently. We test the theory on public opinion data for eleven advanced democracies and suggest how differences in educational systems can help explain cross-national differences in the level of social protection.

We present a theory of social policy preferences that emphasizes the composition of people's skills. The key to our argument is that individuals who have made risky investments in skills will demand insurance against the possible future loss of income from those investments. Because the transferability of skills have strong incentives to support social policies that protect them against such uncertainty. This is not the case for general skills workers, for whom the costs of social protection with more prominently. We test the theory on public opinion data for eleven advanced democracies & suggest how differences in educational systems can help explain cross-national differences in the level of social protection. 5 Tables, 3 Figures, 5 Appendixes, 42 References. Adapted from the source document.