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Equivalent separate-subsample (two-step) and pooled-sample (one-step) strategies exist for any multilevel-modeling task, but their relative practicality and efficacy depend on dataset dimensions and properties and researchers' goals. Separate-subsample strategies have difficulties incorporating cross-subsample information, often crucial in time-series cross-section or panel contexts (subsamples small and/or cross-subsample information great) but less relevant in pools of independently random surveys (subsamples large; cross-sample information small). Separate-subsample estimation also complicates retrieval of macro-level-effect estimates, although they remain obtainable and may not be substantively central. Pooled-sample estimation, conversely, struggles with stochastic specifications that differ across levels (e.g., stochastic linear interactions in binary dependent-variable models). Moreover, pooled-sample estimation that models coefficient variation in a theoretically reduced manner rather than allowing each subsample coefficient vector to differ arbitrarily can suffer misspecification ills insofar as this reduced specification is lacking. Often, though, these ills are limited to inefficiencies and standard-error inaccuracies that familiar efficient (e.g., feasible generalized least squares) or consistent-standard-error estimation strategies can satisfactorily redress.

The causal arguments of modern, positive political science often imply complex interactions among multiple explanatory factors. In one example from comparative and international political economy (C&IPE), sharing of monetary-policymaking control between partially autonomous central banks and politically responsive governments yields inflation as a convex combination of the rates that would have held under full-government and full-central-bank policy control. The anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence (autonomy plus conservatism: CBA) therefore depends on all political—economic variables to which central banks and governments respond differently, and, vice versa, CBA mutes the inflation effects of all such factors. Extending that logic of shared policy control to open political economies: insofar as domestic monetary authorities fix exchange rates, they effectively delegate inflation control to foreign (peg-currency) authorities, and policymakers in small and financially exposed economies must match domestic inflation to foreign (global) rates to avoid massive exchange-rate pressures. Thus, analogously, the domestic-inflation effects of fixed exchange rates and of monetary exposure depend on each other and on many other institutional and structural aspects of the domestic and foreign political economies, and, vice versa, the effects of all domestic and foreign political—economic conditions depend on degrees of exchange-rate fixity and financial openness at home and abroad. This article shows how to model such complexly interactive hypotheses empirically compactly and substantively meaningfully, and demonstrates the postwar inflation records of 21 developed democracies to favor such specifications decidedly over standard linear-additive or linear-interactive alternatives. The concluding sections discuss specific results and implications and then suggest several more potential applications of this general approach to further instances of shared policy control and other substantive contexts that induce the multiple, complex interactions characteristic of modern, positive political science in general and C&IPE especially.

▪ Abstract  Policy makers in democracies have strong partisan and electoral incentives regarding the amount, nature, and timing of economic-policy activity. Given these incentives, many observers expected government control of effective economic policies to induce clear economic-outcome cycles that track the electoral calendar in timing and incumbent partisanship in character. Empirics, however, typically revealed stronger evidence of partisan than of electoral shifts in real economic performance and stronger and more persistent electoral and partisan shifts in certain fiscal, monetary, and other policies than in real outcomes. Later political-economic general-equilibrium approaches incorporated rational expectations into citizens' and policy makers' economic and political behavior to explain much of this empirical pattern, yet critical anomalies and insufficiencies remain. Moreover, until recently, both rational- and adaptive-expectations electoral-and-partisan-cycle work underemphasized crucial variation in the contexts—international and domestic, political and economic, institutional, structural, and strategic—in which elected partisan incumbents make policy. This contextual variation conditions policy-maker incentives and abilities to manipulate economic policy for electoral and partisan gain, as well as the effectiveness of such manipulation, differently across democracies, elections, and policies. Although relatively new, research into such context-conditional electoral and partisan cycles seems to offer much promise for resolving anomalies and an ideal substantive venue for theoretical and empirical advancement in the study of political economy and comparative democratic politics more generally.

Policymakers in democracies have strong partisan & electoral incentives regarding the amount, nature, & timing of economic-policy activity. Given these incentives, many observers expected government control of effective economic policies to induce clear economic-outcome cycles that track the electoral calendar in timing & incumbent partisanship in character. Empirics, however, typically revealed stronger evidence of partisan than of electoral shifts in real economic performance & stronger & more persistent electoral & partisan shifts in certain fiscal, monetary, & other policies than in real outcomes. Later political-economic general-equilibrium approaches incorporated rational expectations into citizens' & policymakers' economic & political behavior to explain much of this empirical pattern, yet critical anomalies & insufficiencies remain. Moreover, until recently, both rational- & adaptive-expectations electoral-&-partisan-cycle work underemphasized crucial variation in the contexts -- international & domestic, political & economic, institutional, structural, & strategic -- in which elected partisan incumbents make policy. This contextual variation conditions policymaker incentives & abilities to manipulate economic policy for electoral & partisan gain, as well as the effectiveness of such manipulation, differently across democracies, elections, & policies. Although relatively new, research into such context-conditional electoral & partisan cycles seems to offer much promise for resolving anomalies & an ideal substantive venue for theoretical & empirical advancement in the study of political economy & comparative democratic politics more generally. 1 Table, 236 References. Adapted from the source document.

Plans for the European Monetary Union (EMU) are based on the conventional postulate that increasing the independence of the central bank can reduce inflation without any real economic effects. However, the theoretical and empirical bases for this claim rest on models of the economy that make unrealistic information assumptions and omit institutional variables other than the central bank. When signaling problems between the central bank and other actors in the political economy are considered, we find that the character of wage bargaining conditions the impact of central bank independence by rendering the signals between the bank and the bargainers more or less effective. Greater central bank independence can reduce inflation without major employment effects where bargaining is coordinated, but it can bring higher levels of unemployment where bargaining is less coordinated. Thus, currency unions like the EMU may require higher levels of unemployment to control inflation than their proponents envisage. They will have costs as well as benefits, and these will be unevenly distributed among and within the member nations, depending on the changes they induce in the status of the bank and of wage coordination.

Ausgehend von der Annahme, daß eine starke Unabhängigkeit der Zentralbank die Inflationsbekämpfung erleichtert, untersucht der Autor die Auswirkungen dieser Unabhängigkeit auf die Beschäftigung unter der Voraussetzung unterschiedlicher Tarifsysteme. so trägt eine große Zentralbankunabhängigkeit zum Rückgang der Inflation ohne negative Beschäftigungseffekte dort bei, wo Lohnverhandlungen in einem koordinierten Rahmen staatfinden, führt aber zu einem Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit, wo solch eine Koordinierung nicht gegeben ist. Im Hinblick auf die Währungsunion ist in diesem Zusammenhang von einem Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit auszugehen. (swp-clv)

Interdependence is ubiquitous and often central across comparative politics. Indeed, as the authors show first, theoretically, any situation involving externalities from one unit's actions on others' implies interdependence. Positive or negative externalities induce negative or positive interdependence, which spurs competitive races or free riding, with corresponding early or late-mover advantages, and thus strategic rush to act or delay and inaction. The authors show next how to model interdependent processes empirically, how not doing so risks omitted-variable biases favoring domestic and exogenous-external accounts over interdependence, but how doing so naïvely risks simultaneity biases with the opposite substantive implications. They then discuss how to estimate properly specified interdependence models and, finally, how to interpret and present estimated spatio-temporally dynamic effects, response paths, and long-run steady-states, with associated standard errors. They illustrate by replicating a noteworthy earlier, nonspatial study of capital tax competition. Web appendices contain further technical details, literature survey, data, statistical software code, and spreadsheet templates for all suggested procedures.

In this paper, we demonstrate the econometric consequences of different specification and estimation choices in the analysis of spatially interdependent data and show how to calculate and present spatial effect estimates substantively. We consider four common estimators—nonspatial OLS, spatial OLS, spatial 2SLS, and spatial ML. We examine analytically the respective omitted-variable and simultaneity biases of nonspatial OLS and spatial OLS in the simplest case and then evaluate the performance of all four estimators in bias, efficiency, and SE accuracy terms under more realistic conditions using Monte Carlo experiments. We provide empirical illustration, showing how to calculate and present spatial effect estimates effectively, using data on European governments' active labor market expenditures. Our main conclusions are that spatial OLS, despite its simultaneity, performs acceptably under low-to-moderate interdependence strength and reasonable sample dimensions. Spatial 2SLS or spatial ML may be advised for other conditions, but, unless interdependence is truly absent or minuscule, any of the spatial estimators unambiguously, and often dramatically, dominates on all three criteria the nonspatial OLS commonly used currently in empirical work in political science.