Contributions in Merlin

Using cross-sectional data from 93 countries, we investigate the relationship between the desired level of redistribution among citizens from different socioeconomic backgrounds and the actual extent of government redistribution. Our focus on redistribution arises from the inherent class conflicts it engenders in policy choices, allowing us to examine whose preferences are reflected in policy formulation. Contrary to prevailing assumptions regarding political influence, we find that the preferences of the lower socioeconomic group, rather than those of the median or upper strata, are most predictive of realized redistribution. This finding contradicts the expectations of both leading experts and regular citizens.

The growth of the knowledge economy alters the risks and opportunities citizens experience in the labor market. Governments attempt to steer and support the adaptation of the workforce, enhance and spread opportunities, and mitigate the negative implications of these changes, in particular via skill-developing labor market policies. However, many recent studies document a puzzling discrepancy between the needs of knowledge economy losers in terms of skill development and their policy preferences. In particular, those most threatened by the knowledge economy prioritize compensation and protection over investments in human capital. Our study theorizes and studies four mechanisms – two ego-tropic, one socio-tropic and one group-tropic – to explain this preference pattern: they a) may have distorted perceptions of the distributive effects of policy reforms, b) may assign less importance to human capital investment as opposed to transfers and protection, c) may think that investment reforms do not contribute to societal equality, or d) may feel that the reforms do not deliver social recognition for themselves and their social ingroups. To test the relative importance of these mechanisms, we analyze novel data from an original survey in nine European countries, using both observational and experimental evidence. Our findings provide evidence for the group-specific recognition mechanism. Knowledge economy losers do think that they would benefit from social investment, and they also think that investment would deliver on equality, but they do not perceive a distinctive benefit for themselves or their ingroups. In their eyes, compensation reforms are the only type of reforms that benefit their ingroups exclusively. Our findings suggest that the effectiveness of policy responses to the knowledge economy depends not only on material effects of reforms but is conditional on cultural and recognition-based mechanisms.

Tracking, the policy of separating pupils into groups based on aptitude, is common, controversial and imperfectly understood. Little consensus exists on the circumstances under which tracking is practiced and what effects it may have on pupils. In this paper, I develop a novel method of measuring within-school tracking using observational data and estimate its long-run effects across a broad set of pupil outcomes. I show that tracking is prevalent, and that it varies both across schools and within schools over time. I find only limited evidence for tracking having significant short or long-run effects on pupils, although girls and boys seem to be affected differently. Finally, I provide evidence against the notion that tracking is a driver of inequality.

Many recent studies have underlined the importance of inequality perceptions as determinants of political demands and behavior. Yet, this literature often focuses on the public perception of one single, often economic, dimension of inequality. This study aims to broaden our perspective and provides a comprehensive assessment of public perceptions of socioeconomic (income, education, and class inequality) and sociocultural inequalities (gender, sexual orientation, and migration background inequality). Furthermore, we disentangle different components of inequality perceptions: the assessed importance of differences, as how problematic they are judged, and who thinks that these inequalities are central to political debates nowadays. We find that highly educated respondents attribute more importance and mostly judge inequalities across the board as more important than the less educated. While information on the extent of inequality can move the assessment of how important inequality is in society, the judgment of these divides remains unchanged, hinting to more deep-seated beliefs that are not as easily changed.

In this chapter, we conceptualise an ideal framework that captures three reinforcing levers for measuring local government performance in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Ghana, namely policy pronouncement, political processes and internal operations, and policy implementation. Given data limitations we employ a ‘next best’ approach to apply this framework and measure local government performance by combining a weighted ‘quality of reporting’ measure with selected available measures on political processes and internal operations, and policy implementation, so as to construct a composite index for local government performance (LGI). We also look at the relationship between our performance indices and other indices of local government performance in Ghana, as well as poverty headcounts. We find that, on average, urban districts perform better than their rural counterparts and also districts located in the southern half of Ghana perform better. Our constructed composite index is positively correlated with indices from Ghana’s district league tables. It has a negative relationship with poverty headcount in districts, indicating that districts with lower poverty incidence are more effective and responsive to their citizens. The findings provide a snapshot of institutional performance across Ghana’s districts, and offer a more comprehensive basis for considering variations in subnational institutional performance, including the effects of decentralisation than previous studies of Ghana – or indeed African countries more broadly.

Opposition between the far right and the new left has transformed West European politics, mainly through increasing sociocultural conflicts. We ask what the new cleavage articulated by these parties implies for the politicization of inequalities in advanced knowledge societies. We contrast two diverging expectations in existing literature: A first, more rational-choice-based perspective expects a trade-off, with new left voters "privileged" by economic transformations emphasizing sociocultural inequalities over socioeconomic ones–and vice versa for "disadvantaged" far right voters. A second, more sociological perspective, predicts attitudes on inequalities to be aligned along a single dimension from new left "universalists" being inequality-averse to right-wing "particularists" being more inequality-tolerant. Our evidence based on original survey data from Germany supports the second perspective. Studying the structural (educational, class, etc.) foundations of inequality aversion suggests that even the transformed (new) left electorate is more sensitive to all dimensions of inequality than voters on the (far) right.

We study same-sex role model effects of teachers with a meta-analysis and our own study of three million students in 90 countries. Both approaches show that role model effects on performance are, on average, small: 0.030 SD in the meta-analysis and 0.015 SD in our multi-country study. Going beyond test scores, our multi-country study documents larger average role model effects on job preferences (0.063 SD). To understand the universality of these effects, we estimate the distributions of country-level same-sex role model effects. Although role model effects on test scores appear universally small, we find substantial cross-country variation for job preferences, with larger effects in countries with larger gender gaps. These results are consistent with role models inspiring students to overcome gender stereotypes and pursue a STEM career. However, in countries with negligible gender gaps, role models do not seem to have this equalizing function.

Group-based identities are an important basis of political competition. Parties appeal consciously to specific social groups and these group-based appeals often improve the evaluation of parties and candidates. Studying place-based appeals, we advance the understanding of this strategy by distinguishing between dominant and subordinate social groups. Using two survey experiments in Germany and England, we show that group appeals improve candidate evaluation among subordinate (rural) voters. By contrast, appeals to the dominant (urban) group trigger a negative reaction. While urban citizens’ weaker local identities and lower place-based resentment partly explain this asymmetry, they mainly dislike group-based appeals because of their antagonistic nature. If the same policies are framed as benefiting urban and rural dwellers alike, candidate evaluation improves. Thus, people on the dominant side of a group divide reject a framing of politics as antagonistically structured by this divide, even if they identify with the dominant group.

How can it be that we experience a historic recession, but international trade is doing just fine? In this Kühne Impact Series, we argue that the COVID-19 recession is one in which non-tradable services suffer but tradable goods thrive. Reasons include that (i) consumption of in-person services is restricted; (ii) demand for consumer durables is strong; (iii) demand for medical goods is high; and (iv) online shopping is popular.

There has been a sharp increase in regional trade agreements (RTAs) in recent decades, most of which take the form of free trade agreements (FTAs). Not only have RTAs risen in number but they have also become “deeper” over time, encompassing provisions that go beyond tariff reductions and traditional trade policies. These “new generations” FTAs pose a challenge for EU trade policy, since the EU’s ability of covering trade and investment policies in one single comprehensive economic agreement has been crippled in the aftermath of the chaos surrounding the CETA agreement. In addition, Europe is experiencing an increasing opposition towards globalization, with protests all around the continent against “deep” trade agreements, and the influence of powerful multinational corporations in determining their content. In view of these new challenges of globalization, this article analyzes the European Union’s ability to ratify deep and comprehensive free trade agreements.