TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Evolving Hierarchical Preferences and Behavioral Economic Policies T2 - Public Choice Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0607-4 SN - 1573-7101 SN - 0048-5829 VL - 178 IS - 1/2 SP - 31 EP - 52 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - The Concept of Ordnungspolitik: Rule-Based Economic Policy-Making from the Perspective of the Freiburg School T2 - Public Choice Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-021-00903-z SN - 1573-7101 VL - 195 SP - 283 EP - 300 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schaltegger, Christoph A. T1 - The Impact of Referendums on the Centralization of Public Goods Provision: A Political Economy Approach T2 - Economics of Governance N2 - The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true preferences of candidates makes strategic delegation impossible. Instead, it is shown that the existence of rent extraction by delegates alone suffices to make cooperative centralisation more likely through representative democracy. In the non-cooperative case, the more extensive possibilities for institutional design under representative democracy increase the likelihood of centralisation. Direct democracy may thus be interpreted as a federalism-preserving institution. KW - Centralisation KW - Direct democracy KW - Representative democracy KW - Public good provision Y1 - 2010 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-009-0063-1 SN - 1435-8131 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 3 EP - 26 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Schubert, Christian T1 - Behavioral political economy: A survey T2 - European Journal of Political Economy N2 - In explaining individual behavior in politics, economists should rely on the same motivational assumptions they use to explain behavior in the market: that is what Political Economy, understood as the application of economics to the study of political processes, is all about. In its standard variant, individuals who play the game of politics should also be considered rational and self-interested, unlike the benevolent despot of traditional welfare economics. History repeats itself with the rise of behavioral economics: Assuming cognitive biases to be present in the market, but not in politics, behavioral economists often call for government to intervene in a “benevolent” way. Recently, however, political economists have started to apply behavioral economics insights to the study of political processes, thereby re-establishing a unified methodology. This paper surveys the current state of the emerging field of “behavioral political economy” and considers the scope for further research. KW - Behavioral political economy KW - Rational irrationality KW - Cognitive biases KW - Social norms KW - Voting KW - Paternalism Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.05.002 SN - 0176-2680 VL - 40 IS - B SP - 395 EP - 417 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Schubert, Christian T1 - A note on the behavioral political economy of innovation policy T2 - Journal of Evolutionary Economics Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-019-00625-y SN - 1432-1386 SN - 0936-9937 VL - 29 IS - 5 SP - 1399 EP - 1414 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Die Nationale Industriestrategie 2030: Eine kritische Diskussion T2 - ORDO : Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft N2 - Wir analysieren die Nationale Industriestrategie 2030, die im Februar 2019 vom Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie veröffentlicht wurde. Bei dieser Strategie handelt es sich um einen Versuch, vertikale Industriepolitik in Deutschland zu stärken. Wir argumentieren, dass die theoretische und empirische Rechtfertigung für diese Strategie insgesamt schwach ist. Die vom Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) vorgeschlagenen Instrumente weisen meist nur eine sehr geringe Passgenauigkeit zur mittelständisch geprägten deutschen Unternehmenslandschaft auf. Sie stellen Anforderungen an die Fähigkeiten der staatlichen Entscheidungsträger, die in der Realität kaum vorzufinden sind. Eine sinnvolle Alternative würde in einer Rückbesinnung auf ordnungspolitische Prinzipien, insbesondere die Gewährleistung einer hohen Wettbewerbsintensität, bestehen. KW - Industriepolitik KW - Innovationspolitik KW - Nationale Industriestrategie KW - Strukturwandel KW - nationale Champions KW - Innovation Policy KW - Structural Change KW - National Champions Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/ordo-2020-0019 SN - 0048-2129 VL - 70 IS - 1 SP - 340 EP - 371 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schubert, Christian T1 - The pitfalls of Darwinian “progress”: a comment on “Evolvability and progress in evolutionary economics” by Tim Cochrane and James Maclaurin T2 - Journal of Bioeconomics Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-012-9146-0 SN - 1573-6989 VL - 15 IS - 3 SP - 325 EP - 328 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Military Spending and Inequality in Autocracies: A Simple Model T2 - Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy N2 - In this note, we outline a general framework for analyzing how inequality and military spending interact in a society governed by a rent-seeking autocrat. Relying on a general equilibrium model, we show that, generally, the autocrat utilizes the military for redistribution in favor of poorer citizens. However, the dictator’s own rent-seeking activity weakens the extent of redistribution and, in the extreme, can even reverse its direction, yielding more unequal secondary distributions instead. Accordingly, the initial level of inequality also affects the impact of military spending on inequality as the former has an impact on the extent of both, the regime’s rent-seeking activity as well as redistribution. Here, our model shows that primary and secondary distributions are rather equal for extreme initial equality/inequality. For medium levels of initial inequality, redistribution is rather large and can be in favor of the poor or of the rich, depending on the extent of rent-seeking and the primary distribution. Based on these results, we highlight the importance of a society’s institutional framework for analyzing the relation of inequality and military spending. KW - Inequality KW - autocracies KW - military spending KW - rent-seeking Y1 - 2018 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/peps.2018.24.issue-4/peps-2018-0025/peps-2018-0025.xml?format=INT U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2018-0025 SN - 1554-8597 VL - 24 IS - 4 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Organized crime as a link between inequality and corruption T2 - European Journal of Law and Economics N2 - We study a model that establishes a novel theoretical rationale for the empirically well-documented relation between inequality and corruption. According to our model, inequality can nurture corruption by empowering organized crime because collusion between local police forces and criminal organizations is more likely in societies characterized by high inequality or weak security forces. Law enforcement and organized crime have a strong incentive to collude due to efficiency gains from specialization. However, their agreement breaks down when the mobsters can no longer credibly commit to joint rent maximization and thus start to compete with law enforcement for citizens’ wealth. The mobsters then non-violently monopolize the market for extortion by undercutting the police forces, similar to a strategy of predatory pricing. Criminal collusion is thus not very different from its corporate equivalent; hence, similar policy measures should be promising. In addition, our model also suggests that the criminal organization’s higher efficiency in extracting rents has a greater impact when the relative power between law enforcement and organized crime is rather balanced. Accordingly, when violent conflict becomes less predictable, non-violent elements of relative power become more relevant. Our model also allows for the interpretation that in the absence of strong social norms against corruption, organized crime is more difficult to challenge. KW - Inequality KW - Corruption KW - Organized crime KW - Public security Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-023-09764-x SN - 0929-1261 VL - 55 IS - 3 SP - 469 EP - 509 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. A1 - Tridimas, George T1 - The political economy of Solon’s law against neutrality in civil wars T2 - Public Choice N2 - In 594 BCE, the Athenian lawgiver Solon, called upon to resolve a deepening social crisis, introduced a new constitution and mandated that in civil conflicts, no citizen is to remain apathetic and must take sides. Because the law seemed to support strife, it presents a puzzle. The paper offers a political economy rationale for Solon’s law against neutrality, modeling social conflict as a rent-seeking competition. We divide society into three groups, a hereditary aristocracy, which monopolized power before the Solonian constitution, a rival wealth-based commercial elite, called the new Solonian elite, and the poor, who are enfranchised only partly. We then identify the conditions under which the third group is better off by allying with one of the other groups, protecting the Solonian constitution. In our framework, Solon’s ban on neutrality is an attempt to change the payoffs from violent redistributions of rents, so that conflict is avoided. Accordingly, the ban should not only impede excessive rent seeking, but also prevent the exclusion of any social group. KW - Ancient Athens KW - Solon KW - Political non-neutrality KW - Rent seeking KW - Intra-elite competition KW - Political apathy KW - Civil war KW - Inclusive institutions Y1 - 2022 UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-022-00980-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-022-00980-8 SN - 1573-7101 VL - 192 IS - 3-4 SP - 249 EP - 272 ER -