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 - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan ED - Eccleston, Richard ED - Krever, Richard T1 - German Federalism at the Crossroads: Renegotiating the Allocation of Competencies in a New Financial Environment T2 - The Future of Federalism: Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in an Age of Austerity Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-1-78471-777-3 SP - 147 EP - 172 PB - Elgar CY - Cheltenham, UK ER - TY - GEN A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Holding out for a better deal: Brinkmanship in the Greek bailout negotiations T2 - European Journal of Political Economy N2 - Greece and its creditors concluded negotiations over a third bailout by signing a Memorandum of Understanding on 19 August 2015. The dominant view among most economic policy analysts and commentators seems to be that the actions of the Greek government in the months before the deal had been erratic and lacked coordination. In this paper we argue instead that the decisions of the Greek leaders, including asking the voters to reject the earlier terms demanded by the creditors in a referendum, can be rationally explained by the logic of brinkmanship. We develop a game-theoretic model to show that the actions of the Greek government are consistent with a strategy aimed at getting a better bailout deal. KW - Greek debt crisis KW - Crisis management KW - Brinkmanship Y1 - 2017 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268016301574 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.08.011 SN - 0176-2680 VL - 48 SP - 40 EP - 53 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - A Constitutional Economics Perspective on Soft Paternalism T2 - Kyklos N2 - Using a framework that distinguishes short-term consumer preferences, individual reflective preferences and political preferences, we discuss from a constitutional economics perspective whether individuals find it in their common constitutional interest to endow representatives and bureaucrats with the competence to impose soft paternalist policies. The focus is specifically on soft paternalist policies, because these often work with non-transparent 'nudges' that are considered as manipulative in some contributions to the literature. We show that those soft paternalist policies that are manipulative indeed collide with three criteria of consumer sovereignty, reflective sovereignty and citizen sovereignty that can be argued to represent common constitutional interest of citizens. On the other hand, we argue that the set of paternalist policies that is deemed acceptable on the constitutional level is restricted to non-manipulative instruments, and their application as government policies is limited to cases with stable and very homogenous preferences. However, we also argue that competitive markets are capable of supplying many mechanisms that allow individuals to cope with problems in their decision-making processes on a private level. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12106 SN - 1467-6435 VL - 69 IS - 1 SP - 135 EP - 156 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Baskaran, Thushyanthan A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Fiscal Federalism and Economic Growth: A Meta-Analysis T2 - Economic Inquiry N2 - The theoretical literature on the economics of fiscal federalism has identified several potential effects of government decentralization on economic growth. Much of the traditional literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services. However, decentralization may also increase growth by raising the ability of the political system to innovate and carry out reforms. On the contrary, some authors argue that decentralization increases corruption and government inefficiency. After a discussion of the theoretical arguments, we provide both a traditional survey and a meta-analysis of the empirical literature on decentralization and economic growth. Based on our survey, we identify open questions and discuss possible ways of answering them. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12331 SN - 1465-7295 VL - 54 IS - 3 SP - 1445 EP - 1463 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Does Classical Liberalism Imply an Evolutionary Approach to Policy-Making? T2 - Journal of Bioeconomics N2 - This paper argues that an evolutionary approach to policy-making, which emphasizes openness to change and political variety, is particularly compatible with the central tenets of classical liberalism. The chief reasons are that classical liberalism acknowledges the ubiquity of uncertainty, as well as heterogeneity in preferences and beliefs, and generally embraces gradual social and economic change that arises from accidental variation rather than deliberate, large-scale planning. In contrast, our arguments cast doubt on a different claim, namely that classical liberalism is particularly compatible with the evolutionary biological heritage of humans. KW - Classical liberalism KW - Evolution KW - Darwinism KW - Economic policy KW - Cultural evolution KW - Institutional evolution Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-014-9188-6 SN - 1573-698 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 53 EP - 70 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 - Groß, Steffen A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios T1 - "The Other Side of the Argument": Isaiah Berlin versus F.A. von Hayek on Liberty, Public Policies and the Market T2 - Constitutional Political Economy Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-015-9193-3 SN - 1572-9966 SN - 1043-4062 VL - 26 IS - 4 SP - 475 EP - 494 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Political Institutions and Income (Re-)Distribution: Evidence from Developed Economies T2 - Public Choice N2 - We discuss the effect of formal political institutions (electoral systems, fiscal decentralization, presidential and parliamentary regimes) on the extent and direction of income (re-)distribution. Empirical evidence is presented for a large sample of 70 economies and a panel of 13 OECD countries between 1981 and 1998. The evidence indicates that presidential regimes are associated with a less equal distribution of disposable incomes, while electoral systems have no significant effects. Fiscal competition is associated with less income redistribution and a less equal distribution of disposable incomes, but also with a more equal primary income distribution. Our evidence also is in line with earlier empirical contributions that find a positive relationship between trade openness and equality in primary and disposable incomes, as well as the overall redistributive effort. KW - Redistribution KW - Formal institutions KW - Fiscal decentralization KW - Presidential and parliamentary regimes KW - Electoral systems Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0116-4 SN - 1573-7101 VL - 159 IS - 3 SP - 435 EP - 455 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Coercion, credibility, and mid-air interceptions of military planes T2 - Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy N2 - Pointing out the remarkable levels of hostile interaction in the air space over contested territory between states like China and Japan or Greece and Turkey we argue that air space incursions can be interpreted as a rational strategy with ultimately political aims. In our interpretation deliberate intrusions of military aircraft into sensitive air space serve as an indirect risk-generating mechanism, as they will trigger scrambles of the opposed government's air force which may escalate into a military crisis. We derive testable hypotheses from a game-theoretic model, which we developed in earlier work to explore the strategic logic behind this risk-generating mechanism more rigorously. In order to test whether the model's predictions regarding the effect of short-term economic developments on the states' interaction hold, we built a database of daily event observations from the Hellenic National Defence General Staff reports of the last 4 years, containing time series data of Turkish intrusions into Greek-claimed air space and the number of dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter planes. What we find is that not only Greek engagements of Turkish intruders but also massed, provocative Turkish intrusions have become significantly less likely after the onset of the Greek economic crisis. These findings are well in line with the predictions of the model and thus supportive of our theory. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2014-0040 SN - 1554-8597 VL - 20 IS - 4 SP - 697 EP - 707 ER -