Elena Jarocińska
I got my PhD in economics and management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2006. Now
I am working for the
Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), Warsaw, Poland. Recent project: Economic, Social and Environmental Impact on Selected Priority Areas of a Future Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation, prepared for the European Commission.
My research interests are political economics, public economics, institutions.
Research
Two hypotheses about the determinants of Russian intergovernmental grants are tested. According to the first hypothesis, federal transfers to regions correlate with recent voting behavior of regional electorates. The second hypothesis states that transfers are higher in regions with politically powerful governors. I find a strong confirmation for the first hypothesis and no evidence for the second hypothesis for the years 1995-1999. This result is robust across specifications. However, in the years 2000-2004 electoral variables show no effect on transfers. The only significant political variable is Putin’s visits to regions.
This paper extends empirical literature on political economy of intergovernmental transfers to multiparty systems that are typical for most European countries. It proposes and uses new methods of estimating the number of swing voters from survey data. The first method estimates densities at the cutpoints, where a voter is equidistant to competing parties. To take into account bi-dimensionality of Spanish politics for three party regions, I estimate bivariate densities at the cutpoints on the left-right and nationalist dimensions. The second method counts voters with similar predicted likelihoods of voting for parties in the regions. The likelihoods of voting are estimated with the multinomial probit technique and include additional controls for the nationalist sentiment.
I find that political variables enter significantly into allocation of state subventions in Spain, and the magnitude of the effect is comparable to that of economic variables. In particular, I find strong evidence for the loyal hypothesis and no evidence for the swing hypothesis. In line with the explanation suggested by Cox and McCubbins (1986), the risk-averse incumbent prefers investing in loyal regions, where he knows better preferences and numbers of their supporters.
