On Thursday, July 8, 2021, Professor Megumi Naoi (University of California, San Diego) will deliver the following public seminar. We look forward to your participation.
”Domestic Institutions, Geographic Concentration, and Agricultural Liberalization: Evidence from Remote-Sensed Cropland Data”
Speaker: Megumi Naoi (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego)
Date and Time: July (Thu) 8, 2021, 10:40-12:10
Venue: Zoom meeting
Registration: Click here for registration
Language: English
Open to members of Waseda University and the general public, free admission
Abstract:
One of the persistent obstacles to trade liberalization is a government’s inability to commit and deliver compensation to trade losers. This paper demonstrates that credible commitments to compensatory policies hinges on inter-branch contract whereby an executive branch promises redistributive compensation in exchange for legislative support of ratification.
We offer a theory that constitutional structures interact with the geographic concentration of industries to affect the costs of forming and enforcing a compensation contract. Specifically, we argue that geographic concentration facilitates the contract enforcement within a party in parliamentary systems with a smaller number of concerned legislators whereas geographic diffusion promotes coalition-building among larger number of legislators in presidential systems to support liberalization.
We test this argument using new data on product-level agricultural trade liberalization and remote-sensed cropland data in 48 democracies. We find that parliamentary (presidential) systems are more likely to liberalize geographically concentrated (diffused) products.
Organizer: Yuriko Takahashi ([email protected])
Sponsors: Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy, Top Global University Project; Empirical and Positive Political Science Workshop; Waseda Institute of Political Economy, Waseda University
