Ali Enami

Balancing the ticket while appealing to the base The game theory behind Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his presidential running mate

Our paper addresses why a moderate presidential candidate would select an extreme running mate, as was the case in the 2012 US presidential election. To address this question, we designed a one-dimensional policy game in which a moderate challenger uses their vice-presidential candidate as a policy tool to alter the median voter participating in the election. Our main conclusion is that the median voter is altered through a mobilization effect, by increasing own party turnout through the convincing of the more extreme segment of a party to participate in the election, rather than altering the voter’s decision to vote for a particular candidate. This decision function only has a marginal effect on independent voters. Our conclusion is in line with recent empirical advances in the literature and our paper aims to more formally ground these advancements in theory. We developed a set of comparative statics to apply the theory of running mate selection more broadly, germane beyond the case of the 2012 presidential election used to frame this topic. Our model also determines the optimal difference between the platforms of a challenger and their vice-presidential candidate.

Fiscal Policy, Inequality and Poverty in Iran: Assessing the Impact and Effectiveness of Taxes and Transfers the Poor in the Developing World

Using the Iranian Household Expenditure and Income Survey (HEIS) for 2011/12, we apply the marginal contribution approach to determine the impact and effectiveness of each fiscal intervention, and the fiscal system as a whole, on inequality and poverty. Net direct and indirect taxes combined reduce the Gini coefficient by 0.0644 points and the headcount ratio by 61 percent. When the monetized value of in-kind benefits in education and health are included, the reduction in inequality is 0.0919 Gini points. Based on the magnitudes of the marginal contributions, we find that the main driver of these reductions is the Targeted Subsidy Program, a universal cash transfer program implemented in 2010 to compensate individuals for the elimination of energy subsidies. The main reduction in poverty occurs in rural areas, where the headcount ratio declines from 44 to 23 percent. In urban areas, fiscally-induced poverty reduction is more modest: the headcount ratio declines from 13 to 5 percent. Taxes and transfers are similar in their effectiveness in achieving their inequality-reducing potential. By achieving 40 percent of its inequality-reducing potential, the income tax is the most effective intervention on the revenue side. On the spending side, Social Assistance transfers are the most effective and they achieve 45 percent of their potential. Taxes are especially effective in raising revenue without causing poverty to rise, indicating that the poor are largely spared from being taxed. In contrast, since the bulk of transfers are not targeted to the poor, they are not very effective: the most effective ones achieve 20 percent of their poverty reduction potential. The effectiveness of the Targeted Subsidy Program could be improved by eliminating the transfer to top deciles and re-allocating the freed funds to the poor.

The Effect of In Utero Exposure to Asian Flu (1957-58) on Future Earnings

The “fetal origin hypothesis” predicts that the exposure to unfavorable environments early in life negatively affects future health and non-health (e.g. income) outcomes. This paper evaluates this theory by examining the effect of in utero exposure to influenza pandemic of 1957-58, the 2nd biggest of the 20th century, on the future earnings of exposed cohort. Using data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), a difference-in-differences model is estimated for four demographic groups: white and non-white males and females. While the effect of this exposure on earnings of white individuals is statistically insignificant, the effect is both (economically and statistically) significant and contradictory for non-whites. Non-white females experienced a

Determinants of Child Mortality in Africa: A Methodological Discussion

6100 loss in their yearly wage while the wage of non-white males increased by about

Do refugee-immigrants affect international trade? Evidence from the world's largest refugee case

11900.

Analytic Foundations: Measuring the Redistributive Impact of Taxes and Transfers

Current literature is ambiguous regarding the significance of public health expenditure in reducing mortality rate among children in cross country studies. In fact, several previous studies found the relationship between these two variables to be insignificant. Such findings indicate the existence of a huge inefficiency in public sector of struggling countries and discourage supports provided by donating entities. This study addresses the disagreement in the literature by pointing out how results are sensitive to the use of non-stationary variables that are used often in the literature. Using a Panel Vector Autoregressive model, no empirical evidence for the role of public health expenditure in reducing child mortality is found when non-stationary variables are used. However, results are significantly different as soon as stationary variables are substituted in the same model. In fact, the elasticity of under five mortality rate with respect to per capita public health expenditure is about -0.22 for African countries in the sample.