The Perception of Anti-corruption Efficacy in China: An Empirical Analysis

As corruption affects people in all walks of life, public reactions to corruption and citizens’ views of the government’s anti-corruption effort are critically important. Any government seeking to make effective policy against corruption must obtain public trust and support, which provides the much-needed legitimacy for policy enforcement. In this study, we drew on a survey of 1,604 randomly selected residents in Shanghai in 2008 to examine the perceptions and attitudes of Chinese citizens towards the government’s anti-corruption effort. Specifically, we focussed on the “sense of anticorruption efficacy,” defined as people’s expectation for positive anti-corruption outcomes. We addressed two questions. To what extent the public was confident in the government’s anti-corruption efficacy? What factors explained the variation in people’s perceptions of anti-corruption efficacy? Results indicated that two salient factors could affect an individual’s sense of anti-corruption efficacy. First, as corruption contributed to social disparity, the perceived unfairness of income distribution exacerbated people’s expectation for anti-corruption efficacy. Secondly, an accepting attitude towards power intrusion into income distribution diluted the positive impact of the perception of unfair distribution on people’s expectation for anti-corruption efficacy. We take from the results that to what extent people expect the government to make effective effort to control corruption is determined by both economic and political factors. People develop high expectation for anti-corruption reform when they are unhappy not only with the lack of fairness in income distribution but also with the intrusion of political power into economic affairs which, if unconstrained, often gives rise to corruption.     

The Dynamics of Welfare Opinions in Changing Economic, Institutional and Political Contexts: An Empirical Analysis of Dutch Deservingness Opinions, 1975–2006

Long-term trends in deservingness opinions and how these fluctuate in relation to changes in the economic, institutional and political contexts have not often been examined. In this paper, we address these trend questions by analyzing 22 waves of the repeated cross-sectional Cultural Change in The Netherlands (CCN, 1975–2006) survey. Our analyses show fairly stable public deservingness opinions regarding five different needy groups over the long term. Over the short term, opinions fluctuate more. Explanatory analyses show that economic and political factors, but not institutional factors, are especially influential over fluctuations in opinions. When real GDP grows, the Dutch public is more likely to consider the disabled, the elderly and social assistance beneficiaries deserving of more welfare support. In addition, when unemployment rises, the unemployed and social assistance beneficiaries are more likely to be seen as deserving of more support. Finally, when the national political climate is more leftist, most needy groups are considered to be deserving of more welfare support.     

What is the Influence of News Media on People’s Perception of Corruption? Parametric and Non-Parametric Approaches

Does the source of one’s news media have a systematic effect on one’s perception of political corruption? While numerous studies have investigated the extent to which media affects trust in institutions, or the polarization of political values, this study shifts the focus on to how one’s media source conceived here as social media versus traditional media affects the perception of corruption in 2 ways. First, we hypothesize that citizens who consume their news predominately from social media will have higher perceptions of political corruption than consumers of more traditional media sources. Second, we hypothesize that perceptions among social media consumers will be more polarized. Specifically, we argue that the gap in corruption perception between supporters of government and opposition political parties will be larger among social media consumers compared to traditional news consumers. We test our hypotheses using newly collected survey data from the European Quality of Government Index survey from 2017, which contains nearly 78,000 respondents in 21 countries in the European Union. Estimating our model with both parametric and non-parametric approaches, we find robust empirical support for two of our 3 hypotheses.

     

A politico-economic model of aging,technology adoption and growth

This paper provides a politico-economic theory that explains how an economy evolves when the longevity of its citizens is jointly determined with the process of economic development. We propose a three-period overlapping generation model where agents’ decisions embrace two dimensions: a private choice about education and a public one on innovation policy. We find that (a) poverty traps can emerge in human capital accumulation, (b) higher life expectancy increases the incentive to innovate for both young and adults, (c) different political configurations can arise depending on endogenous demographic structures and (d) the steady state can entertain both innovation and its absence.     

Multinational Corporations,Democracy and Child Mortality: A Quantitative,Cross-National Analysis of Developing Countries

This study presents quantitative, sociological models designed to account for cross-national variation in child mortality. We consider variables linked to five different theoretical perspectives that include the economic modernization, social modernization, political modernization, ecological-evolutionary, and dependency perspectives. The study is based on a cross-lagged effects regression analysis of a sample of 59 developing countries. Our preliminary analysis based on additive models replicates prior studies to the extent that we find that indicators linked to economic and social modernization have beneficial effects on child mortality. We also find support for hypotheses derived from the dependency perspective suggesting that multinational corporate penetration fosters higher levels of child mortality. Subsequent analysis incorporating interaction effects suggest that the level of political democracy conditions the effects of dependency relationships based upon multinational corporations. Transnational economic linkages associated with multinational corporations adversely affect child mortality more strongly at lower levels of democracy than at higher levels of democracy–that is intranational, political factors interact with the international, economic forces to affect child mortality. We conclude with some brief policy recommendations and suggestions for the direction of future research.     

人口结构因素对美国房地产业发展的影响

房地产业是美国经济的重要组成部分。二战后的美国房地产业发展呈现明显的周期波动状态。除货币市场、利率调整等经济因素和政府调控、政策调整等政治因素外,二战后美国人口结构变化也在很大程度上影响着房地产业的发展变化,其中,以人口年龄结构、家庭结构和空间分布结构对其影响最为显著。     

中国人口综合因素与住宅销售价格指数的灰色关联度分析

房地产价格持续走高已经成为影响国民生活质量的重要因素,其作为经济发展中的一部分,对政府行为、百姓生活等有着重要影响。房地产分为住宅用途和商业用途两种。当前,我国已经频出重拳对住宅用途房地产进行调控,试图将其控制在合理的水平,但是调控的效果还有待评估。针对《中国统计年鉴》的住宅销售价格指数(HSPI),运用灰色关联度分析模型分析当前我国综合人口经济因素与HSPI的关联程度,从人口规模因素、人口素质因素、人口生存因素和人口抚养比因素四个维度测度综合人口经济因素与房价变动的关系。     

Life Satisfaction as a Buffer of the Relationship Between Corruption Perception and Political Participation

The present article aimed at exploring the effect of corruption perception on political participation and the moderating role of life satisfaction on this relationship. To accomplish these objectives, we collected both survey and experimental data. In Study 1, corruption perception, life satisfaction, and political participation were all measured using self-report scales. The results indicated that corruption perception was negatively associated with political participation, and that life satisfaction moderated the relationship between corruption perception and political participation. In Study 2, corruption perception was manipulated by placing respondents in either a high-corruption or a low-corruption condition with subliminal priming. Compared with the high-corruption condition, the respondents primed by the low-corruption condition reported greater political participation. Furthermore, corruption perception hampered political participation only when life satisfaction was low. The results of the two studies confirmed that corruption perception attenuated political participation and that life satisfaction served as an appraisal buffer to alleviate this effect. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

基于人口迁移的中国城市体系演化预测研究

从中国城市化的本质———人口迁移网络出发,考虑所有城市空间单元以及城市间人口迁移联系在内,开展人口迁移和城市体系的综合性研究,探讨中国城市体系演化机理,将新经济地理学理论拓展到多区域,引入地理空间异质性,构建空间参考明确、全域均衡、空间单元之间存在明确人口迁移机理的城市体系模型。通过实证检验,该模型的模拟结果较为接近实际情况,模型拟合精度较高,可以用于城市体系演化预测。根据目前中国实际国情和国家政策导向,本文在三种大的城市化情景下根据中国各城市间人口迁移来预测中国未来城市体系的演化,即把整个城市体系视作一个通过人口迁移相互联系的网络整体来预测城市人口变化情况,从而为国家新型城镇化规划的流动人口管理、公共服务改进和城市等级体系规划等方面的政策制定提供现实依据。     

Health and economic development—evidence from the introduction of public health care

This paper investigates the causal effect of improvements in health on economic development using a long panel of European countries. Identification is based on the particular timing of the introduction of public health care systems in different countries, which is the random outcome of a political process. We document that the introduction of public health care systems had a significant immediate effect on health dynamics proxied by infant mortality and crude death rates. The findings suggest that health improvements had a positive effect on growth in income per capita and aggregate income.     

Cultural Endorsement of Broad Leadership Prototypes and Wealth as Predictors of Corruption

Corruption is a social ill that involves public officials’ misuse of entrusted power, which is a function of sociocultural factors. Rarely, however, do researchers view corruption as a leadership-related problem. In the current research, we conceptualize corruption as a leadership-related problem, and propose three broad leadership prototypes based on social value orientation theory and research. We seek to examine (1) how cultural endorsement of self-serving, prosocial, and individualistic leadership prototypes is related to corruption at the societal level and (2) how wealth moderates the relationship between cultural endorsement of self-serving leadership and corruption. Using archival data of 53 societies, we found that cultural endorsement of self-serving leadership was positively related to corruption, strengthened by wealth. Cultural endorsement of prosocial leadership and individualistic leadership, however, was not significantly related to corruption, and wealth did not moderate either of the relationships. The implications of these findings for theory and future research are discussed.     

Infrastructure Spending in China Increases Trust in Local Government

Following the 2008/9 financial crisis, China instituted a 4 trillion RMB stimulus package that was spent mostly on infrastructure, with a particular impact at local level. The goal was to sustain economic growth and preserve social stability. We use the Asian Barometer surveys from shortly before and after the stimulus to examine its impact on public trust in government, and find a reversal of a previous downward trend and a substantial increase in trust in local government post stimulus. We consider a number of alternative explanations for this increase in trust, and conclude that the stimulus package is the most convincing explanation. Both perceptions of corruption and experience of corruption increased over the stimulus period. Given the strong negative correlation between corruption and trust, this implies that trust would have increased even further if the level of corruption had remained the same.     

城市化过程中人口变动趋势对我国房地产开发的影响

城市化是中国经济现代化的重要标志。城市化过程中我国人口变化的趋势对城市房地产需求总量和结构产生重要影响,为房地产市场带来机遇和挑战。     

Indicators and Implications of Zero Tolerance of Corruption: The Case of Hong Kong

Notwithstanding the voluminous studies of Hong Kong’s anticorruption experience and the admiration the ICAC has earned from other governments as a model for “institutional engineering,” little is known about how the public in Hong Kong has perceived and responded to corruption. Less clear is what factors beyond a powerful and independent anticorruption agency have made the Hong Kong experience possible. Drawing on original survey data collected in Hong Kong in 2010–2011, this study investigates what determines individual propensities to accept or reject corruption and explores the role of a zero-tolerance culture in preventing corruption. Evidence confirms the existence of a low tolerance for corruption in Hong Kong. It also reveals a more significant impact of informal institutions than formal ones on corruption tolerance levels. As the very first study of zero tolerance of corruption, this research adds considerable depth to our understanding of why Hong Kong has become one of the most corruption-free societies in the world and of the importance of civic engagement in deterring actual and potential corruption.     

Economic Gender gap in the Global South: How Public Institutions Matter

One of the most challenging gender gaps in the Global South remains in the economic sphere. This paper examines how public institutions affect the gender gap in economic participation and opportunities in 74 developing and emerging countries during the period 2006–2016. We find that the public institutional environment is closely related to the economic gender gap. Specifically, the protection of property rights and guaranteeing security seem to be two key factors associated to lower economic gender inequality. Nevertheless, public institutions do not matter equally throughout economically backward countries. Whereas in emerging countries, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, a broad variety of institutional aspects, including undue influence on judicial and government decisions, are closely related to the economic gender gap, in low-income developing countries, such as Sub-Saharan countries, the problems of ethics and corruption stand out as a particularly remarkable element against economic gender equality. Some significant policy implications are derived from our findings regarding the potential of public institution reforms to reduce the economic gender gap.

     

Private-Sector Corruption: Measurement and Cultural Origins

Research on corruption has made substantial progress in recent years. Yet, most studies still treat corruption as a homogenous phenomenon. This article argues that private-sector corruption can be distinguished conceptually from public-sector corruption, which has been in the spotlight of empirical research. We introduce the first indicator of private-sector corruption covering a large cross-section of countries. This new indicator is used to extend a recent empirical study on the cultural determinants of public-sector corruption (Kong and Volkema in Soc Indic Res 127(1):139–152, 2016). We find that self-serving leadership in high-income countries is associated with more corruption in both the public and the private sector. Furthermore, individualistic leadership in low-income countries is linked to reduced private-sector corruption. Next, we test a number of alternative cultural explanations for differences in private-sector corruption across countries. Overall, our results suggest that specific forms of corporate leadership culture matter for private-sector corruption, but also religious identity and trust play an important role.     

How Does Education Affect Political Trust?: An Analysis of Moderating Factors

This article aims to understand the correlates of political trust by delving into the multiple interactive effects of education in democratic states throughout the world. It asks whether education raises political trust by increasing the stakes of the citizens in the system and whether education diminishes trust as a result of being abler to evaluate the existence of corruption in a given country. It also taps into how post-materialism as an individual-level factor affects this equation by activating critical judgments toward political institutions. The findings show that, indeed, the effect of education on political trust is very context-dependent. Political trust and education are positively correlated in more meritocratic countries and negatively correlated in the more corrupt ones. Post-material values, combined with educational attainment, tend to lower political trust to a certain extent yet this effect is surpassed by the presence or absence of meritocracy or political corruption. We also find that the effect of education on political trust becomes more pronounced as the level of education increases, with university graduates being the most susceptible to the effects of meritocracy and corruption on their trust levels.

     

Public marketing: A suggested policy planning paradigm for community development in the city

We are witnessing a profound and long term redirection of federal program strategies in the area of social welfare and economic development from planning and program design at the national level toward a model that places the city at the center of the development process. Community development is becoming an increasingly important methodology in this transfer of authority from the federal to the local level. However, integrating current community development methods into the policy process of local government has not been fully thought out by academicians or practitioners. This paper suggests that a public marketing model based on marketing principles provides a potential framework for incorporating existing community development approaches into a strategy that relates to the current demands on cities for public accountability while providing city officials a rational framework for the value of public goods and services in a current competitive market place for the allocation of resources between public and private consumption.     

人口迁移、城市圈与房地产价格——基于空间计量学的研究

本文结合我国正兴起的城市圈建设趋势,基于1997~1999年广东省各地级市的数据,构建联立方程模型,利用空间计量方法,研究珠三角城市圈内人口迁移与房地产价格之间的关系。结果发现,不仅传统的收入、消费以及人口迁移等因素可以显著地影响房地产价格水平,而且空间地理因素也可以对城市房地产价格产生显著的影响。     

A New Perspective on Violent Crime Burden Index: Evidence from Indian Districts

Given limited resource availability in a developing nation like India, faced with high incidences of crime, it is important to optimize on the resources spent in combating crime by channelling them to proper direction. This requires an understanding of the actual and overall level of crime across India. Our paper provides a complete understanding of the various indicators of violent crime and the determinants of these crimes in India using district level data for three census years, namely, 1981, 1991 and 2001. We construct three alternative crime-burden indices. Including a variable like voter turnout in state election at the district level, we document significant impact of public awareness to reduce and combat crime. The constructed crime burden index shows that states located in northern parts of India have more incidences of crime compared to states in the south. We also find that our estimated crime-burden indices tend to report in general a higher level of crime-burden than the average based index. This suggests controlling for the factors beyond population while constructing the aggregate crime-burden index for any country is essential. Our work although is limited to the Indian data, we however, believe that this can be easily applied to various other countries.