Fascinating paper by @grattonecon, @bartonelee2, and Hasin Yousaf!
The paper addresses a fundamental question: Why do some democracies chronically avoid ambitious, long-term reforms even when they have decent institutions?
They argue that what matters is not only institutional quality (rules, transparency, electoral design), but also political culture: voters’ beliefs about whether politicians can be trusted and whether institutions really hold them accountable.
In their model, there are two types of politicians: ambitious
academic.oup.com/ej/advance-art…

Inspired by @CaioSeldon's selection of books, here is my summary of the conceptual chapter in Dahl's classic work on polyarchy and democratisation. The central question je seeks to answer is: “Given a regime in which opponents of the government cannot openly or legally organise into political parties to oppose the government in free and fair elections, what conditions favour or impede a transformation into a regime in which they can?” (p. 1) He is concerned with explaining the development of a system of public contestation, with the government and the

Inspired by this excellent Substack post, I want to share some thoughts on the limits of moderate accommodation and the logic of the second best. Specifically, here is what I think is the *strongest* argument for the anti-accommodation view looks like -- which doesn't necessarily mean that I fully subscribe to it.
Moderate accommodation on immigration would, in principle, be feasible if Labour enjoyed credibility—or at least a lower valence disadvantage —on the issue. In such a case, voters could interpret a moderate policy
dysfunctionalprogramming.substack.com/p/on-the-immig…

Some thoughts on the strategic logic behind Kemi Badenoch’s announcement that she’d scrap the Climate Change Act (CCA).
It serves two functions:
1️⃣ It appeals to lukewarm pivotal voters in marginal seats sceptical of costly green measures.
2️⃣ It is designed to placate or, even, boost the relative power of the climate sceptics in the Tory party, especially the Net Zero Scrutiny Group.
In a first-past-the-post system (FPTP), what matters electorally isn’t the national majority view, but where voters sit geographically. Winning
theguardian.com/environment/20…

Let me add this paper by Besley et al, which is forthcoming in the @QJEHarvard, which, I think, provides a nice micro-foundation for between-cohort variation in zero-sum attitudes. They define “growth experience” as the average GDP growth an individual has lived through since

https://twitter.com/edenhofer_jacob/status/1972270813077545083

birth, weighted by how recent those years are (recency gets more weight, based on @umalmend & @ProfStefanNagel's “memory decay” model). Their "identifying variation" comes from within-country differences in growth experiences from within-country diff.
cepr.org/publications/d…

German Reunification Day invites both gratitude and reflection.
Gratitude, because the peaceful revolution of 1989 was nothing short of a miracle — a bloodless dismantling of a repressive regime.
Reflection, because the wounds of the transition still mark the country —and because misleading narratives about the East persist when we don’t think carefully about what “persistence” actually means.
East–West differences in voting, trust, and economic outcomes are real. But they are too often construed as evidence of a either

https://x.com/edenhofer_jacob/status/1758084907597693402

It is simple: @JohnHCochrane believes the political externalities of a Zucman-style wealth tax would be negative. @ojblanchard1, by contrast, believes that they would be positive.
The Cochrane-type position follows from basic libertarian principles. By eroding the principle of

https://twitter.com/JohnHCochrane/status/1969177299556974697

private ownership, it risks discouraging productive activity and damaging institutional credibility, especially of property rights (also might fuel envy). The libertarian worry, as articulated by Friedman and Hayek, is that doing so will erode freedom and give rise to

Here is the sketch of my tentative conceptual answer to the questions below -- let me know what you think. I'd argue that higher wages have two countervailing effects. They raise competence (by reducing opportunity costs), but may lower morality (by crowding out intrinsicially

https://twitter.com/edenhofer_jacob/status/1744111390309171345

motivated types).
1. Opportunity Cost Channel (Competence Effect) If pay in office is low compared to private-sector outside options, highly skilled individuals self-select out of politics. Raising wages reduces this incentive, making office more attractive to people with better

That strikes me as too strong a claim. I think it's more accurate to say that accommodation *can* work when: (i) the party system (probably yes in Denmark, less clear in Germany) and internal party politics allows for electoral arbitrage (gains from programmatic accommodation),

https://twitter.com/mvinaes/status/1956958905327653343

(ii) the general equilibrium effects - notably thenormalisation of right-wing attitudes and its wider behavioural manifestations -- don't outweigh the electoral gains, and (iii) voters' distrust in mainstream parties is sufficiently low and the policies used for accommodation are

🧵Ein paar tentative Gedanken zur politischen Ökonomie eines möglichen AfD-Verbotsverfahrens.
Ich bin an Kritik sehr interessiert – denn ich bin mir selber unsicher.
Die strategische Lage lässt sich, denke ich, mit einem 5-stufigen "Spiel" ganz gut erfassen (als Approximation erster Ordnung)
1️⃣ Mainstream-Parteien entscheiden, ob sie ein Verbotsverfahren einleiten.
2️⃣ Die AfD entscheidet über Mobilisierungsstrategie.
3️⃣ Das BVerfG fällt ein Urteil.
4️⃣ Wähler:innen & Partei reagieren auf das Urteil.
5️⃣ Mainstream-Parteien reagieren programmatisch

🧵 @ChFlachsland and I posted the first draft of our Climate Politics Framework (CPF) paper—our attempt to provide a structured synthesis of the insights of modern social science into why ambitious climate mitigation is politically such a wicked problem, and under

https://twitter.com/socarxivpapers/status/1935712976192913626

what conditions it becomes feasible (see figure below). Critical feedback is warmly welcome.
The CPF’s central structure is: Fundamental problems → mass and elite politics → climate policy platforms → strategic challenges → mass/elite politics & GHG outcomes.

I disagree with this -- both because the empirical literature Caplan relies on is not particularly convincing and because most "voters' stupidity is to blame for Trump" takes don't contend seriously with alternative "rational" explanations. Note: Caplan might still be right; yet,

https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1932115732948484444

the evidence he draws on doesn't support his very strong conclusions.
Tl;dr summary:
1. A fair amount of the "evidence" that is used to argue that voters are irrational is observationally equivalent with "rational" models. This of course doesn't nowpublishers.com/article/Detail…

Some thoughts on the strategic rationale behind the "Brandmauer” – the cordon sanitaire vis-à-vis the AfD – and the challenges associated with maintaining it. Seems pertinent, given that senior CDU/CSU figures regularly float the idea of ditching it and exploring avenues for closer cooperation.
As for the strategic rationale, let me make two points.
1. I am sceptical that “Entzauberung” is a good strategy – betting on the AfD revealing itself as incompetent once in power *and* voters punishing the AfD for such incompetence.
First, the welfare

🚨 New working paper! 🚨
@grattonecon and I just completed the first draft of "The Rise and Fall of Technocratic Democracies". Excited to present it in Munich this week—thanks to @LauraSeelkopf, @christoph_knill & others for hosting us! 🧵👇
▶️ Motivation
Many democracies have have witnessed a process of "technocratization", with unelected technocrats having gained greater discretion over important realms of public policy (e.g. monetary policy). Populists explicitly oppose this narrowing of the purview of majoritarian policymaking, instead vowing to

@KaiGehring1 Yes -- this argument depends on a number of assumptions, though, which are rarely spelt out:
1. Voters have a clear objective they want to see achieved (is -10% immigration enough? -50%?). If this is a moving target, then parties' will be pulled away ever more from the centre. @KaiGehring1 2. Voters will actually realise that an "issue" has been solved. This rules out that populists can conjure up beliefs by exploiting misperceptions about immigration/immigration.
3. Voter will credit a government consisting of mainstream parties with this. The deeper the distrust,

Das finde ich sehr plausibel, da der/die Medianwähler:in immer älter wird. Meine Frage ist: Denkt man dieses Argument zu Ende, wäre das nicht auch ein Grund, die Schuldenbremse nicht aufzuheben? Dazu ein sechs politökonomische Gedanken und Fragen.

https://twitter.com/schieritz/status/1878384401257550319

1⃣ Deutschland befindet sich in einer Situation, in der diejenigen, die von investiven Ausgaben vor allem profitieren, relativ an Gewicht verlieren, sowohl anteilig an der Bevölkerung als auch (und noch mehr) an der Wählerschaft (geringere Wahlbeteiligung jüngerer Menschen).

Interessante Argumente, denen ich allerdings nur in Teilen zustimme. Bin aus folgenden Gründen skeptischer.
1. Die Kostenreduktionen bei den erneuerbaren Energien müssen auch vor dem Hintergrund des technologischen Fortschritts bei der Extraktion von Öl and Gas

https://twitter.com/ChrisStoecker/status/1875827461130162210

gesehen werden -- insbesondere, weil die geopolitischen Anreize, die Extraktionskosten weiter zu reduzieren, beträchtlich sind. Das wird auch deutlich, wenn man sich vergegenwärtigt, dass die Öl- und Gas-Produktion unter Harris
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…

Interessanter Artikel, den ich allerdings nur mäßig überzeugend finde.
Zunächst bin ich – anders als Zürn – skeptischer, was die „explanatory power“ der politikwissenschaftlichen Erklärungen für den Aufstieg der Rechtspopulisten betrifft.

https://twitter.com/annettedittert/status/1875082954063347753

Die Effektgrößen (meistens zwischen 1 bis 10 Prozentpunkten) der gut identifizierten Studien reichen eher nicht aus, um das "support level" zu erklären -- und die Studien, die zu "großen" Effekten kommen, sind empirisch wackelig sind. Das hat auch damit zu tun, dass es schwierig

Möchte dies zum Anlass nehmen, auf meinen Bsky-Post von vor ~2 Wochen zu verweisen. "Für mich ist das Attraktive an der liberalen Demokratie, dass sie eben auch mit ganz gewöhnlichen Menschen funktioniert – also Menschen, deren Motive meist eine
bsky.app/profile/jacobe… x.com/sabinedoering/… ganze Menge Egoismus und ein Wenig Altruismus widerspiegeln und die kognitiv erhebliche Beschränkungen haben, weshalb sie Fehlwahrnehmungen und "inferential mistakes" aufsitzen. Das unterscheidet die liberale Demokratie von anderen Systemen, die – wenn überhaupt – nur

Here is my list.
1. “Special Interest Politics” by Grossman and Helpman
mitpress.mit.edu/9780262571678/… x.com/edenhofer_jaco… 2. “The Normalization of the Radical Right” by @ValentimVicente
academic.oup.com/book/57946

Ok, I'll bite - mainly because the idea that accommodating the radical right on immigration is almost bound to work electorally seems to be rather popular among mainstream politicians.
Let me try to provide a basic overview of the party competition literature and, in doing so,

https://twitter.com/MartGuenzel/status/1862817120540606590

explain why there are good reasons to be sceptical about the claim that accommodation will reap electoral rewards. This doesn't mean that accommodation never works -- just that there is little reason to be as confident about its radical-right-dampening potential as many