Suchergebnisse

Environmental taxes have been discussed as one of the main mechanisms to deal with environmental problems. Nonetheless, instruments of this type have rarely been implemented, and the adoption of new or higher environmental taxes has faced resistance in some countries. The purpose of this work is to identify one possible political answer to why adoption of environmental taxes varies. One explanation is that legislatures' ideological position affects the degree of usage of taxes generally and environmental taxes in particular. For example, right-wing parties tend to be less associated with environmental concerns and more associated with lower government intervention. This paper presents evidence that reflects this relationship, showing the positive association of more left-wing legislatures with higher levels of environmental taxation. A panel of data for 37 developed and developing countries over 16 years is used considering the percentage of total revenue from environmentally related taxes, the ratio of this revenue to total energy use and tax levels in industry and household sectors. The results show that most of these impacts involve environmentally related taxes in the industry sector. Proportional representation electoral systems and high seat concentration by few parties appear to be necessary conditions for the negative relation of right-wing ideology with environmental taxes.

Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which politicians running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal that exposes these candidates increases their coercion effort to offset the negative popularity shock. This may result in the tainted politicians actually increasing their vote share. We provide empirical evidence from one recent episode in the political history of Colombia, the 'parapolitics' scandal featuring politicians colluding with illegal armed paramilitary groups to obtain votes. We show that colluding candidates not only get more votes than their clean competitors, but also concentrate them in areas where coercion is more likely (namely, areas with more paramilitary presence, less state presence, and more judicial inefficiency). Harder to reconcile with other explanations and as a direct test of the effects of media exposure, we compare tainted candidates exposed before elections to those exposed after. We find that those exposed before elections get as many votes as those exposed once elected, but their electoral support is more strongly concentrated in places where coercion is more likely. Our re

Free media may not favor political accountability when other democratic institutions are weak, and may even bring undesirable unintended consequences. We propose a simple model in which candidates running for office may engage in coercion to obtain votes. A media scandal exposing these candidates entices them to increase their coercion effort to offset the negative shock on their popularity, potentially minimizing or even counteracting the effect of the scandal on their vote share. We provide empirical evidence from one recent episode in the political history of Colombia in which politicians seeking a seat in Congress colluded with illegal armed paramilitary groups to obtain votes, and this collusion was ultimately brought to light by a media scandal. We find that paramilitary-backed candidates exposed before elections get as many votes as those exposed after elections, but their electoral support is more strongly concentrated where coercion is cheaper: in areas with paramilitary presence and weak state capacity. Our results highlight the complementarity between different dimensions of democratic institutions. ; La libertad de prensa puede no favorecer la rendición de cuentas política cuando otras instituciones democráticas son débiles, y puede incluso tener consecuencias negativas no intencionadas. En este artículo, proponemos un modelo simple en el que los candidatos que participan en elecciones pueden ejercer coerción para obtener votos. Un escándalo medí ático que expone a estos candidatos los incentiva a incrementar sus esfuerzos por compensar el resultante choque negativo de popularidad con mayor coerción electoral, lo que puede minimizar, o inclusive compensar, el efecto del escándalo en su votación. En el artículo presentamos evidencia empírica de un episodio reciente en la historia política de Colombia, en el que políticos se aliaron con grupos armados paramilitares para obtener votos, alianza que eventualmente fue revelada por un escándalo medí ático. Encontramos que los candidatos aliados con los paramilitares que fueron expuestos por la prensa antes de las elecciones reciben tantos votos como los que fueron expuestos después, pero su apoyo electoral se concentra mayoritariamente en los lugares en donde la coerción es más barata. Es decir, en áreas con presencia paramilitar y capacidad estatal débil. Nuestros resultados destacan la complementariedad entre diferentes dimensiones de las instituciones democráticas