Distributive Policies Research Articles

The Essence of Unity?

The Cohesion Policy of the European Union has a long history in European integration. New enlargement waves, internal and external challenges, economic downturns and other crises have consistently required a redefinition of the goals and instruments of Cohesion Policy. It is primarily recognised as one of the most prominent distributive policies of the EU and one of the largest development policies of the world. The aim of this article is to provide a basis for understanding this complex policy area by offering a historical perspective and outlining the future context and challenges. After establishing a suitable theoretical framework, the evolution of the policy is explained by examining the policy goals and objectives in different integration eras, as well as providing an overview of Cohesion Policy’s role in the EU’s budget. Following a summary of the main management methods, the article assesses the future perspectives of the policy.

The Quest for Institutional Stability: Fiscal Distributive Policies and Economic Crises in Argentina, 2002-2023

The Quest for Institutional Stability: Fiscal Distributive Policies and Economic Crises in Argentina, 2002-2023

코로나19 팬데믹 시기의 국가정책이 국내 관광 소비지출에 미치는 영향

Purpose - The infectious disease generally provides a negative impact on the tourism industry. Most prior studies have been focused on examining the size of negative impact on the tourism industry due to the infectious disease. However the number of studies is insufficient that empirically investigate the effect of national policies on various tourism activities under infectious disease pandemic. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of regulatory policy(social distancing) and distributive policy(disaster relief payment) on domestic tourism expenditure under the Covid-19 pandemic. Research Design, data, and methodology - The research design for this study is folded into three parts. First, the VAR model was used to forecast the amount of tourism expenditure by assuming the policy was not implemented. Second, Counter-factual analysis was conducted to confirm the difference between the predicted value and the real value during the policy was implemented. Finally, MAPE was used to compare the effect of national policies. The data used for this study were daily time-series data from January 1, 2019, to August 31, 2020. Result - The empirical results showed that the regulatory policy m a negative effect on tourism expenditure while the distributive policy had a positive effect on tourism expenditure. And regulatory policy and distributive policy had differently influenced on each type of tourism expenditure. Conclusions - Both national policies in terms of regulatory and distribute policy were effectively conducted to achieve each objective of its policies.

Estimating Inclusiveness of Growth in Sub-Sahara African Countries: a VAR Approach

The study examined the interaction among income inequality, economic growth, and poverty with a view of assessing the extent of inclusiveness of growth in selected African countries. Using a dataset from World Development Indicators (WDI) and Standardized World Income Inequality Dataset (SWIID), the study adopted Vector AutoRegression (VAR) method in its econometric analysis. Its findings show that only "West" African countries exhibit partial traits of inclusiveness of growth. Thus, the study recommends the provision and implementation of distributional and growth-oriented macroeconomic policies, as well as investment in public infrastructure to spread the benefits of growth to all in African countries.

Early Childhood Education Policy and Practice in Ghana

Early childhood education (ECE) in Ghana has grown from a traditional approach to a more formalised and modernised system of care and education services for young children. As a valued practice, ECE reflects a distributive, regulatory or redistributive policy. The paper analyses Ghana’s ECE policy implementation using McDonnell and Elmore’s framework of five elemental instruments. We supported the analysis with ECE policy documents and research evidence in ECE. Enabling and inhibiting factors affecting ECE were identified and ways were devised to enhance the latter. We established that while ECE has somewhat addressed equity and access issues, concerns exist regarding implementation factors such as quality teacher training and parent involvement for promoting effective programs. The paper recommends the need to evaluate ECE and provide planned and ongoing opportunities to advance the professional development, capacity, and motivation of ECE implementers, especially early childhood teachers.

In Strongman We Trust: The Political Legacy of the New Village Movement in South Korea

AbstractThis study explores how authoritarian distributive policies may not only generate political support for the autocrat but may also help sustain powerful and lasting authoritarian legacies. We use microlevel data from South Korea's New Village Movement, a 1970s rural development program implemented under dictator Park Chung‐hee and widely touted as contributing to the country's rapid economic development. Our analysis shows that townships in receipt of larger cash transfers cast more votes for Park's incumbent party in the subsequent election. More importantly, we show that the effects of the subsidies still appeared almost four decades later in 2012, when the dictator's daughter was democratically elected as the president of South Korea. We show that these effects were not driven by villagers’ long‐term income gains or enhanced social capital due to the program but by the unwavering support of the beneficiary villagers for the dictator, whose legacy remained strong long after democratization.

KUASA ETNISITAS DALAM MEREK POLITIK KONSUMEN KABUPATEN TEBO DI ERA REFORMASI

This study will examine political marketing in the electoral contestation in Tebo Regency during the Reformation Era which is then associated with the construction of the ethnicity of the people of Tebo Regency as the main force in winning the power contest. This study aims to determine the construction of political marketing on the electoral political contestation targeting populism of ethnicity in Tebo Regency. By using descriptive qualitative research methods, the results of this study answer that the real power of ethnicity is able to become a consumer political brand through political marketing carried out by candidate pairs who fight with a combination pattern of ethnicity (Javanese and Jambi Malay). Then there is a distributive populist policy that targets ethnic groups that are the basis of voters with the aim of personal political interests to be re-elected in the election. This study offers a recommendation that in the context of ethnicity, which is usually one of the topics in the theory of voting behavior, it is also packaged in a political marketing strategy which can cause several negative impacts later which causes the development process to not prioritize the principle of justice, resulting in polarization in society.

Populism in the XXI Century in Brazil: A Dangerous Ambiguity

In this paper, I hope to shed light on the social and institutional transformation processes in Brazil in the 21st century, contrasting what can be understood as two populist waves. The first is the one led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as a left-wing leader whose government has been internationally recognized for implementing distributive economic policies (inclusion of the poorest majority) and inclusive social policies (inclusion of racial and sexual minorities). The second is the right-wing wave led by Jair Bolsonaro, internationally recognized, but rather for embracing a discourse contrary to the inclusive practices adopted by their predecessor. Thus, the question I want to answer is: How can the same concept fit into such different phenomena? My hypothesis is that we are facing two patterns of representative relations. An inclusive one that aims to expand the number of groups that can be properly represented within the political collectivity, increasing its pluralism, and an exclusive one that aims to restrict them, shortening the plurality of groups and identities that forms the people. In both, the theme of racial and sexual minorities becomes a priority. Through this discussion, I want to emphasize the substantive and existential quality of the differences between these two representative patterns that are sometimes neglected or reduced by those who use the concept of populism to attribute some kind of symmetry or ideological convergence between them.

Data‐model driven rescheduling considering both rotor angle stability and transient voltage stability constraints

Facing the problem of workforce and time costs caused by the rescheduling of large-scale power grids with renewable energy penetration, and the lack of parallel control research on rotor angle instability and transient voltage instability, a rescheduling method based on trajectory sensitivity and deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is proposed to meet the requirements of rotor angle stability and transient voltage stability at the same time. By introducing the process of rescheduling to meet the transient stability constraint, the Markov decision-making process of rescheduling is first constructed. Then, a simple dominant instability type identification method is proposed according to the occurrence time, location, voltage pattern, and position of the oscillation centre. Moreover, a rescheduling strategy is formulated based on the dominant instability mode identification, trajectory sensitivity calculation, actionable device selection, action amount computation, and action of the device. Next, according to the improved distributed distributive deep deterministic policy gradients (D4PG), a DRL model is established to map the action to actionable generator pairs and capacitors/reactors, so as to realize parallel rescheduling of rotor angle instability and transient voltage instability. Finally, the improved New England 39-bus system and an actual power grid are used to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the method.

The Effect of Performance Information on Actual Budgeting Allocation: The Role of Policy Type

The purpose of this study is to examine how performance information changes actual budget allocation in both government proposals and congressional appropriations. Focusing on the effects of performance information on budget changes by subsection and policy type, the analysis reveals significantly positive relationships between performance information and budget changes. The analysis also shows significantly positive correlations between the planning and management sectors and budget changes. We also examine the effects of performance information on budget changes by policy type. Meanwhile, the results indicate that performance information had significant positive relationships with the budget allocations for distributive and redistributive policies.

Employment inequality in India during the pandemic

PurposeThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-induced response policies initiated by the Indian states disproportionately impact the employment of different groups in terms of gender, caste and religion. This study analyses the impact of the COVID-19-induced labor policies on employment inequality across different groups in India.Design/methodology/approachThe authors identify different exogenous COVID-19-induced labor policies initiated by the Indian states, and synthesize them into direct and indirect labor policies. The authors employ a panel model to examine the impact of COVID-19-induced labor policies on employment inequality.FindingsThe authors find that the direct and indirect labor policies induce a decline in the employment rate, and create employment inequality among gendered and religious sub-groups. Females and Muslims have not significantly benefited from the COVID-19-induced labor policies. However, disadvantaged caste groups have benefited from direct and indirect labor policies.Research limitations/implicationsThe time period during which this research was conducted was quite brief, and the qualitative impact of labor policies on employment inequality has not been accounted for.Practical implicationsThis study unravels the distributive impact of the COVID-19-induced direct and indirect labor policies on the well-being of vulnerable laborers.Social implicationsThe study provides novel empirical evidence of the beneficial role of a proactive government. This study’s findings suggest the need for specific distributive labor policies to address employment inequality among gender and religious groups in India.Originality/valueThe study employs new data sources and synthesizes the COVID-19-induced labor policies into direct and indirect labor policies. In addition, the study contributes to understanding the impact of COVID-19 induced direct and indirect labor policies on employment inequality across gender, caste and religious sub-groups in India.

The regulatory state in developing countries: Redistribution and regulatory failure in Brazil

AbstractFollowing the traditional doctrine of the “regulatory state”, regulatory agencies should be given very focused mandates and stay away from the politicized realm of distributive policies and decisions. An opposing perspective would state that if regulatory agencies can contribute to economic redistribution, positive results such as network expansion, economies of scale, and fiscal efficiency will ultimately lead to lower levels of regulatory failure. This article tests whether, in countries of high socio‐economic inequality, such as Brazil, the active incorporation of distributive considerations by regulatory agencies leads to lower levels of failure. Through the analysis of the activities of seven Brazilian network regulatory agencies, the article develops theory‐driven expectations and tests these expectations using crisp set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA). It concludes that not prioritizing redistribution is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for regulatory agencies' failure. In most types of failure, a lack of priority to redistribution leads to failure when combined with low regulatory capacity and low levels of competence.

Liberal egalitarian justice in the distribution of a common output. Experimental evidence and implications for effective institution design

AbstractWe present an experiment that sets up a context of production of a common output obtained by using production means that are randomly and unequally distributed. Before the production phase, subjects must choose a distributive principle for the output division, under ignorance of the allocation of the production means. Subsequently, they make a distributive choice fully aware of their luck and performance. The aim of the experiment is to test, first, whether ordinary subjects in an impartial situation are capable of converging on a fair principle of distribution – able of redressing the arbitrariness of the initial production means allocation; and second, whether these same ordinary subjects are capable of actually following that principle in a real distributive choice that excludes coercion, reputation effects and other forms of social pressures. The main finding is that a distributive rule that redresses initial inequalities is both acceptedex-anteand actually appliedex-postby most individuals. Our conclusion is relevant for the issue of realism of normative theories of justice and the possibility of institution design aimed at implementing distributive justice principles and policies.

Redistribution with labor market frictions

We study distributive and insurance policies in frictional labor markets where workers are privately informed about their abilities. The combination of selection and moral hazard constraints demands the use of new tax instruments that are redundant in frictionless labor markets to target vacancy creation. We characterize efficient allocations and derive new optimality conditions on effort and employment probability wedges. Wedges on both effort and vacancy creation are always positive at the bottom of the income distribution. For strong enough distributive motives, the same is true for all but the most productive agents. We devise a method for the quantitative assessment of inefficiencies, calibrate our model to the U.S. economy, and find that it is possible to increase government revenues by 3.48% while preserving everyone's utility.

An assessment of the policy and regulatory outcome by the telecom services users: The emerging economy study

Outcome-based policy evaluation is an established practice in the distributive and redistributive public policies. Such practices are not evident for competitive regulatory policies of telecom, especially in India. This study bridges this research gap by carrying out an outcome-based evaluation of telecom policy and highlighting the importance of such evaluation. Using the methodological pluralism model from Schalock (2002), the outcome of India’s telecom policies was evaluated. Outcome measures from the vision statement of telecom policy were appraised by telecom users by responding to a structured questionnaire-based survey. Factor analysis confirmed that our survey instrument measured the identified policy outcomes. Regression analysis confirmed that users’ appraisal was based on their experiences of telecom services. Against five policy outcome measures, the survey respondents agreed on the achievement of affordability of services: 68.9% of the respondents found telecom services not secure; 74.7% of the survey respondents indicated an issue with quality; 55.6% of the respondents did not agree that the services are available anytime, anywhere. Outcome measures like telephone density (teledensity) as adopted by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are not the true representative of policy outcome. A multistakeholder policy evaluation will reveal the actual policy outcomes. International Telecommunications Union (ITU) should establish a standardized framework for outcome-based policy evaluation to address such issues.

Socioeconomic inequality in congenital heart diseases in Iran

IntroductionSocial-economic factors have an important role in shaping inequality in congenital heart diseases. The current study aimed to assess and decompose the socio-economic inequality in Congenital Heart Diseases (CHDs) in Iran.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional research conducted at Shahid Rajaie Cardiovascular Medical and Research Center in Tehran, Iran, as one of the largest referral heart hospitals in Asia. Data were collected primarily from 600 mothers who attended in pediatric cardiology department in 2020. The polychoric principal component analysis (PCA) and Errygers corrected CI (ECI) were used to construct household socioeconomic status and to assess inequality in CHDs, respectively. A regression-based decomposition analysis was also applied to explain socioeconomic-related inequalities. To select the explanatory social, medical/biological, and lifestyle variables, the chi-square test was first used.ResultsThere was a significant pro-rich inequality in CHDs (ECI = -0.65, 95% CI, − 0.72 to − 0.58). The social, medical/biological, and lifestyle variables accounted for 51.47, 43.25, and 3.92% of inequality in CHDs, respectively. Among the social variables, family SES (about 50%) and mother’s occupation (21.05%) contributed the most to CHDs’ inequality. Besides, in the medical/biological group, receiving pregnancy care (22.06%) and using acid folic (15.70%) had the highest contribution.ConclusionWe concluded that Iran suffers from substantial socioeconomic inequality in CHDs that can be predominantly explained by social and medical/biological variables. It seems that distributional policies aim to reduce income inequality while increasing access of prenatal care and folic acid for disadvantaged mothers could address this inequality much more strongly in Iran.

“What have you done for me lately?” Re-thinking local representation

Scholars have studied the influence that constituents exert on elected representatives’ action in national parliaments at length. Still, academic pundits have usually confined local representation to distributive policies and casework, and limited local legislators’ focus to a territorial perspective. In this study, I try and propose a more nuanced theory of local representation, and I use automated text analysis to capture elected representatives’ propensity to serve functional as well as territorial interests. In an effort to provide empirical backing to my theoretical argumentation, I present an analysis of Italian legislators’ behavior which shows that deputies are willing to divert public spending to their district but also to favor the interests of specific economic sectors. Scholars have already acknowledged the multidimensional character of political representation at the national level, my analysis offers theoretical justification and empirical evidence to support doing so at the local level as well.

Poverty and inequality in the light of modern approaches to overcoming Russian poverty

The subject of the article is the phenomenon of poverty in light of the problems of excessive economic inequality, which is the main source of formation of Russian poverty, and indicative of institutional analysis which involves a critical revision of social-economic policy of the state instead of the official way of dealing with this problem without considering the reasons of its formation (targeting of poverty). The aim of the work is to update the cause-and-effect factors of poverty formation in Russia, the main of which is a critically high level of inequality with an assessment of the role, nature and causes of its causes. The hypothesis of the study is the thesis that the fight against poverty is ineffective based only on increasing the number and level of social payments and social programs, without taking into account the causes of poverty, thus not affecting any socio-economic processes for its formation. Meanwhile, both the indicative and institutional approach to the analysis of the main causes of poverty shows the dominant role of excessive inequality in the formation of the problem of Russian poverty. In turn, inequality is caused by the inefficiency of the state’s distributive and redistributive policies, caused by the lack of scientific conditionality and systematic political decisions.

Sustainable Energy Policies and Equality: Is There a Nexus? Inferences From the Analysis of EU Statistical and Survey Data

Energy Justice (EJ) and particularly Energy equality (EE), arguably a radical conceptualization of energy justice, advocated for distributional justice and policies addressing distributional inequalities. Distributional policies are known to be contentious and often raise debates on the opportunity to interfere with the free-market allocation of goods in capitalistic economies. Whether EE inspired policies might be considered implementable or not depends on their social acceptability. Therefore, holding on to previous research findings pointing to the higher acceptability of equitable climate policies and the relationship between economic inequality and environmental degradation, we analyse EU data regarding income and income and wealth inequality and data from the H2020 ECHOES project, which consists of an extensive European survey of household energy consumption attitudes. We found that economic equality accounts for 41% of the variance explained at the country level of our sustainable energy care index (SECI), accounting for sustainable energy attitudes. We conclude that the interplay between economic equality and sustainable energy attitudes deserves further attention and might warrant a broader discussion about distributive policies within and beyond the energy sector.

Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context

Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context