Browsing by Author "Stegmueller, Daniel"
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Item Embargo Local Tax Effort and Anti-Corruption Campaign: Evidence from China(2024) Yang, ShujunThe study aims to explain the factors leading to changes in tax bureaucrats' effort levels and how closely these factors are associated with the anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping after he took office in 2012. I constructed an original dataset and employed a fixed-effect counterfactual estimator to decompose the effects of routine anti-corruption actions and unique measures in the anti-corruption campaign on tax bureaucrats' effort levels, proposing different mechanisms to explain the differences between these effects. I argue that, first, based on the formal relationship between municipal party secretaries and local tax bureaucrats in Chinese prefecture-level cities, the turnover of party secretaries triggers a "new broom sweeps clean" effect, increasing tax bureaucrats' effort levels; second, for tax bureaucrats at any level, the changes in external conditions brought by the anti-corruption campaign are not sufficient to reduce tax bureaucrats' effort levels in the long term.
Regression results validate my theory: for general political turnover of municipal party secretaries, tax bureaucrats' effort levels increase in the second year after the party secretary takes office; while for cities where party secretary turnover occurred due to corruption, local tax bureaucrats' effort levels are lower than other types of political turnover, but the effect remains positive. Furthermore, the negative impact on bureaucratic efficiency brought by central inspections since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is short-lived.
Item Open Access Organized Interests and the Mechanisms Behind Unequal Representation in Legislatures(2021-12-23) Becher, Michael; Stegmueller, DanielItem Open Access Preferring Refugees: How German Attitudes Changed During the European Refugee Crisis and Along Historical State Divides(2017-05-15) McMichael, JohnThe 2015 refugee crisis brought 1.3 million migrants to Europe; of those, one million sought asylum in Germany, bringing profound social and political repercussions. Germany is now challenged with aiding and integrating over a million migrants; my thesis aims to understand how German attitudes towards refugees have changed over the course of the refugee crisis. This study uses data from national surveys to determine trends in German public opinion on migrants between March 2015 and March 2016. A discrete choice experiment revealed implicit preference biases among German citizens on the bases of religious affiliation, gender, profession and education level, origin, and reason for immigrating. German citizens felt most strongly towards religion and reason for immigrating; Muslim refugees and migrants seeking economic improvement were heavily disfavored when compared to Christians and migrants claiming persecution. Respondents in the former GDR disfavored Muslim migrants more than respondents in western Germany, but western Germans’ attitudes towards Muslims changed significantly during the refugee crisis. Respondents in west Germany also held stronger preferences against economic migrants; these attitudes changed significantly more than eastern respondents’ over time. These trends in German public opinion on refugees have important social and political implications for integration efforts and asylum policies moving forward.Item Open Access The Altruistic Rich? Inequality and Other-Regarding Preferences for Redistribution(QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, 2016) Dimick, Matthew; Rueda, David; Stegmueller, DanielItem Open Access The Persistent Effect of Language on Preference for Income Redistribution: Evidence from a Natural Experiment(2018) Fu, JiaweiIs there any long-term factor that shapes individual preference for income redistribution and corresponding economic or political behavior? I document the persistent effect of language structure, specifically word order freedom (WoF), on preference for redistribution. WoF refers to the extent to which word order can be changed without affecting the original meaning. In this article, I develop two formal models to show how languages with more flexibility in word order foster a consciousness of equality and encourage people to be more risk-averse. Empirically, using two general social surveys, I find that people speaking a language with greater WoF are more likely to purchase insurance and support to reduce the income gap. Furthermore, I investigate a natural experiment traced back to the Viking age. By using Scandinavian settlements as an instrumental variable, I reveal the causal relationship between language and the variation of human political attitudes and behaviors.