We develop a theoretical model in which ?rms are either private or state-owned. When ?rms become insolvent, the government can intervene with general measures, like subsidies, or by nationalizing ?rms. The government only intervenes when the bankruptcy of a ?rm entails social costs. In a stylized model, we analyze how government interventions a?ect allocative and productive efficiency. Nationalization of private ?rms in case unpro?table investments were made, leads to increased allocative efficiency despite private ownership. The effort level chosen by the managers working for ?rms is also affected by government intervention with an impact on productive efficiency.
We develop a theoretical model in which there are public and private firms and a government. When firms become insolvent, the government can intervene with bailouts or nationalizations. The government only intervenes when the bankruptcy of a firm entails social costs. In this setting, we analyze how government interventions affect allocative and productive efficiency. Nationalizations of private firms after unprofitable investments lead to increased allocative efficiency despite private ownership. The effort level chosen by the managers and employees working for a firm is also affected by the possibility of government interventions, reducing the productive efficiency advantage of private firms.
This thesis is focused on the nationalization of party systems in Western Europe and combines four different approaches. Despite the literature claiming that political decentralization reduces party system nationalization, the first paper shows that this effect depends on the level of personalism that the electoral system allows. The second article shows a new effect of the nationalization of party systems. This variable is shown to be a crucial element to explain turnout differences across districts within a country. The third article of this thesis is centered on the impact of the electoral system on party system nationalization through a crucial-experimental approach based on electoral reforms in Western Europe. Finally, the last part of the thesis focuses on describing and analyzing the nationalization of political parties in Spain, paying particular attention to differences among national and subnational parties. ; Esta tesis doctoral está centrada en la nacionalización de los sistemas de partidos en Europa Occidental desde cuatro perspectivas diferentes. Una hipótesis clásica de la literatura es que la descentralización política reduce la nacionalización. En el primer artículo se muestra que el efecto de esta variable depende de que haya un grado suficiente de personalismo en el sistema electoral. En el segundo artículo se demuestra un nuevo efecto de la nacionalización de los sistemas de partidos; esta variable determina las diferencias en la participación electoral entre distritos dentro de un mismo país. El tercer artículo se aproxima al fenómeno mediante experimentos cruciales centrados en las reformas del sistema electoral en Europa Occidental a fin de estimar su efecto sobre la nacionalización. Finalmente, el último artículo analiza la nacionalización de los partidos en España y sus principales determinantes, distinguiendo particularmente entre partidos de ámbito nacional y subnacional.
Includes abstract. ; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-55). ; Within a context of political posturing and intimidation it can become difficult for fruitful discussion to emerge and real debate can be stifled. The nationalisation of mines in South Africa is a discussion that has been debated in such an environment. The aim of this dissertation is to cut through the political posturing and get to the fundamental question surrounding nationalisation of mines in South Africa. Would nationalising the South African mining industry enhance its contribution to the achievement of poverty and inequality reducing economic growth? This is the central question to the debate because the twin objectives of the South African government are to eradicate poverty and substantially reduce inequality.
Contains much of the material in the author's The Federal Government and functional democracy, published in 1940. ; "Selected bibliography": p. 29. ; Mode of access: Internet.
This dissertation is about the institutional choices governments make to manage their petroleum wealth. It is about the determinants of these choices, but more importantly, their consequences for effective governance and how they explain variations in political outcomes in oil-producing countries. I begin by describing several different institutional pathways -- involving national oil companies (NOCs) and their varying characteristics -- that governments can take in extracting petroleum and regulating its production. My goal, then, is to show how these seemingly technical institutional choices can have profound impacts on governance, ranging from effects on state revenue collection to incentives for corruption to ultimately the survival of the regime itself. To this aim, I collected original longitudinal data on the formation of NOCs in 62 countries since 1900; data from U.S. Department of Justice transcripts on the prosecution of corrupt practices in the energy sectors of 80 countries in the 2006-12 period; and existing cross-national data on government revenue capture from the sale of oil and natural resources. I analyze the determinants of NOC formation in the first empirical chapter, where I use Bayesian analysis informed with interview-based data from oil consultants to test and confirm leading theories of state revenue-maximization as the primary determinant of expropriation. In the following chapter, I analyze the process of extortion in the oil sector where I show cross-nationally how NOC institutional design influences bribery to high-level government officials. In the penultimate chapter, I expand on the governance consequences of NOCs by showing that nationalization ultimately increases state resource revenues, creating pathways for regime stability and duration. In the last chapter, I discuss the theoretical implications of my argument and findings. I make two broad claims in this dissertation. First, while there is much agreement that oil is not always and everywhere a curse for political development, there is little consensus about the specific conditions or institutions that do and do not matter. I help turn the ``institutions matter'' phrase from a vague stylized fact into a well-measured, clearly-specified phenomenon. Second, when it comes to the production of natural resources, classical economics theories would suggest that state intervention will lead to inefficiency, lower outputs and therefore lower revenues. In contrast, I argue and show evidence that some forms of state intervention -- that is, certain types of NOCs -- actually increase both production levels and revenues when compared to periods of no state intervention. Taken together, my dissertation applies novel ways to measure and test theories about oil's conditional effects on politics that are widely circulated but often assumed rather than tested.
Stem cell research and synthetic biology offer complementary insights on the nature of scientific governance in China. Stem cells were essentially promoted by top-down semi-governmental initiatives. Yet it was through a process of 'de-nationalization' (in which a diversity of cross-border communications initiated by scientists effaced the dominance of a singular national voice) that China's stem cell research gained global recognition. Meanwhile, the emergence of synthetic biology has shown a reverse pathway. While many 'Chinese' synthetic biology projects are primarily associated with international programs, this 'de-nationalized' start did not lead to an abandonment of a national agenda. Rather, synthetic biology in China has been transformed into a grassroots proposition of a 'Big Question' approach, which in effect creates a 're-nationalization' by bringing synergy among domestic experts. Chinese stakeholders' experience seems to indicate that scientific development is steered by a (cosmopolitan) practicality, which has lead to a bottom-up instrumentalization of the nation-state. ; La recherche sur les cellules souche et en biologie synthétique offre des perspectives complémentaires sur la nature de la politique scientifique en Chine. Les cellules souche ont été essentiellement promues par des initiatives semi-gouvernementales du haut vers le bas. Cependant, c'est à travers un processus de " dénationalisation " (dans laquelle des communications transfrontières diverses initiées par des scientifiques effacent la domination d'une voix nationale unique) que la recherche chinoise sur les cellules souche a obtenu une reconnaissance globale. Simultanément, l'émergence de la biologie synthétique a montré une trajectoire inverse. Alors que de nombreux projets " chinois " en biologie synthétique sont associés au premier chef à des programmes internationaux, cette première étape " dénationalisée " n'a pas mené à un abandon de l'agenda national. Au contraire, la biologie synthétique en Chine a été transformée en une ...
Stem cell research and synthetic biology offer complementary insights on the nature of scientific governance in China. Stem cells were essentially promoted by top-down semi-governmental initiatives. Yet it was through a process of 'de-nationalization' (in which a diversity of cross-border communications initiated by scientists effaced the dominance of a singular national voice) that China's stem cell research gained global recognition. Meanwhile, the emergence of synthetic biology has shown a reverse pathway. While many 'Chinese' synthetic biology projects are primarily associated with international programs, this 'de-nationalized' start did not lead to an abandonment of a national agenda. Rather, synthetic biology in China has been transformed into a grassroots proposition of a 'Big Question' approach, which in effect creates a 're-nationalization' by bringing synergy among domestic experts. Chinese stakeholders' experience seems to indicate that scientific development is steered by a (cosmopolitan) practicality, which has lead to a bottom-up instrumentalization of the nation-state. ; La recherche sur les cellules souche et en biologie synthétique offre des perspectives complémentaires sur la nature de la politique scientifique en Chine. Les cellules souche ont été essentiellement promues par des initiatives semi-gouvernementales du haut vers le bas. Cependant, c'est à travers un processus de " dénationalisation " (dans laquelle des communications transfrontières diverses initiées par des scientifiques effacent la domination d'une voix nationale unique) que la recherche chinoise sur les cellules souche a obtenu une reconnaissance globale. Simultanément, l'émergence de la biologie synthétique a montré une trajectoire inverse. Alors que de nombreux projets " chinois " en biologie synthétique sont associés au premier chef à des programmes internationaux, cette première étape " dénationalisée " n'a pas mené à un abandon de l'agenda national. Au contraire, la biologie synthétique en Chine a été transformée en une ...
Stem cell research and synthetic biology offer complementary insights on the nature of scientific governance in China. Stem cells were essentially promoted by top-down semi-governmental initiatives. Yet it was through a process of 'de-nationalization' (in which a diversity of cross-border communications initiated by scientists effaced the dominance of a singular national voice) that China's stem cell research gained global recognition. Meanwhile, the emergence of synthetic biology has shown a reverse pathway. While many 'Chinese' synthetic biology projects are primarily associated with international programs, this 'de-nationalized' start did not lead to an abandonment of a national agenda. Rather, synthetic biology in China has been transformed into a grassroots proposition of a 'Big Question' approach, which in effect creates a 're-nationalization' by bringing synergy among domestic experts. Chinese stakeholders' experience seems to indicate that scientific development is steered by a (cosmopolitan) practicality, which has lead to a bottom-up instrumentalization of the nation-state. ; La recherche sur les cellules souche et en biologie synthétique offre des perspectives complémentaires sur la nature de la politique scientifique en Chine. Les cellules souche ont été essentiellement promues par des initiatives semi-gouvernementales du haut vers le bas. Cependant, c'est à travers un processus de " dénationalisation " (dans laquelle des communications transfrontières diverses initiées par des scientifiques effacent la domination d'une voix nationale unique) que la recherche chinoise sur les cellules souche a obtenu une reconnaissance globale. Simultanément, l'émergence de la biologie synthétique a montré une trajectoire inverse. Alors que de nombreux projets " chinois " en biologie synthétique sont associés au premier chef à des programmes internationaux, cette première étape " dénationalisée " n'a pas mené à un abandon de l'agenda national. Au contraire, la biologie synthétique en Chine a été transformée en une ...
A government bargains a mutually convenient agreement with a multinational corporation to extract a natural resource. The corporation bears the initial investment and earns as a return a share on the profits. The host country provides access and guarantee conditions of operation. Being the investment totally sunk, the corporation must account in its plan not only for uncertainty on market conditions but also for the threat of nationalization. In a real options framework where the government holds an American call option on nationalization we show under which conditions a Nash bargaining is feasible and leads to attain a cooperative agreement maximizing the joint venture surplus. We find that the threat of nationalization does not affect the investment time trigger but only the feasible bargaining set. Finally, we show that the optimal sharing rule results from the way the two parties may differently trade off rents with option value.
In this chapter - one amongst 10 countries studied in the book - we analyze the nationalization of electoral behaviour in Russia, systematically studying 204 elections for the lower chamber of regional (sub"ekty) parliaments held between 7 December 2003 and 13 September 2015. In the Russian context, nationalization has occurred mainly because of the increasing vote shares won by the United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) party. Despite an overall trend of nationalization, however, we find significant traces of regionalization of the vote. In other words, the depth and speed of nationalization have been unequal across the territory. In particular, we find that nationalization has been particularly pronounced in ethnic and more populous regions. Furthermore, we find that electoral institutional engineering has facilitated nationalization.
The literature on the nationalization of electoral politics focuses on the institutional characteristics of political regimes and the structure and organization of social cleavages. We argue that the nationalization of electoral politics is also driven by economic performance. Economic perturbations increase vote transfers from large (and highly nationalized) parties to small (and weakly nationalized) parties. Permissive electoral systems exacerbate the influence of economic performance on nationalization. Pooled cross-sectional time-series regression analysis is conducted on data from 43 countries and 475 elections between 1950 and 2012. The party-level mechanisms are shown through a closer look at Austria, Portugal and Ireland. ; The authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2013-40723-C2-1-R and CSO2013-47023-C2-2-R).
Within a simple model of differentiated oligopoly, we show that tacit collusion may be prevented by the threat of nationalising a private firm coupled with the appropriate choice of the weight given to private profits in the maximand of the nationalised company. We characterise the properties of such a threat and prove that it may allow to credibly deter tacit collusion.
The high oil prices and the sharp increases in royalties mean that the natural gas boom in Bolivia has become very important for the economy. This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the impacts of this boom on key macroeconomic variables as well as the distribution of incomes in the society. From a macroeconomic perspective, the natural gas boom is a blessing, adding around 1 percentage point to GDP growth rates for at least a decade, and sharply increasing government revenues available for public spending and investment. However, the poorest segments of the population (rural small-holders and urban informals) suffer actual reductions in their real incomes, compared to the counterfactual scenario without the gas boom. This means that the natural gas boom not only causes an increase in inequality but also an increase in poverty. The paper finishes with some policy recommendations on how to counteract the negative side effects of the natural gas boom. ; Los precios altos del petróleo y el significativo incremento de los ingresos públicos provenientes de su explotación han implicado que el gas natural se vuelva muy importante para la economía boliviana. Este trabajo utiliza un modelo de Equilibrio General Computarizado (EGC) para evaluar los impactos de este boom sobre las variables macroeconómicas claves así como respecto de la distribución de ingresos en la sociedad. Desde una perspectiva macroeconómica, el boom del gas natural parece ser una bendición, pues podría elevar en cerca de un punto porcentual las tasas de crecimiento del PIB durante por lo menos una década, incrementando vigorosamente los ingresos del gobierno para realizar gastos e inversiones públicas. Sin embargo, los segmentos más pobres de la población (pequeños agricultores e informales urbanos) podrían verse seriamente afectados, sufriendo reducciones en sus ingresos reales en comparación con el escenario opuesto, es decir, sin el boom del gas. Esto quiere decir que el boom del gas natural no sólo podría causar un aumento en la desigualdad sino también una expansión de la pobreza. Este trabajo termina con algunas recomendaciones en cuanto a políticas que sugieren cómo contrarestar los efectos secundarios negativos del boom de gas natural.
