Yaniv Reingewertz
University of Haifa
Network
Latest external collaboration on country level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots.
Publication
Featured researches published by Yaniv Reingewertz.
European Journal of Political Economy | 2016
Thushyanthan Baskaran; Sebastian Blesse; Adi Brender; Yaniv Reingewertz
This paper examines whether revenue decentralization and direct external financial supervision affect the incidence and strength of political budget cycles, using a panel of Israeli municipalities during the period 1999–2009. We find that high dependence on central government transfers – as reflected in a low share of locally raised revenues in the municipalitys budget – exacerbates political budget cycles, while tight monitoring – exercised through central government appointment of external accountants to debt accumulating municipalities – eliminates them. We also find that this pattern is predominantly accounted for by development expenditures. These results suggest that political budget cycles can result from fiscal institutions that create soft budget constraints: that is, where incumbents and rational voters can expect that the costs of pre-election expansions will be partly covered later by the central government.
Administration & Society | 2016
Doron Navot; Yaniv Reingewertz; Nissim Cohen
Scholars maintain that higher wages for public servants would make the public sector more efficient and reduce the abuse of power. This article challenges this idea and suggests that higher wages may actually increase public corruption. We argue that increasing pecuniary incentives for public service might lead public employees to advance their own self-interests and encourage justifications for accepting bribes. We test our theory empirically using 18,800 observations from 58 countries taken from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey. The findings confirm our theory and suggest a positive association between public servants’ wages and the toleration of corruption.
Journal of Informetrics | 2018
Yaniv Reingewertz; Carmela Lutmar
Do academic journals favor authors who share their institutional affiliation? To answer this question we examine citation counts, as a proxy for paper quality, for articles published in four leading international relations journals during the years 2000–2015. We compare citation counts for articles written by “in-group members” (authors affiliated with the journal’s publishing institution) versus “out-group members” (authors not affiliated with that institution). Articles written by in-group authors received 18% to 49% fewer Web of Science citations when published in their home journal (International Security or World Politics) vs. an unaffiliated journal, compared to out-group authors. These results are mainly driven by authors who received their PhDs from Harvard or MIT. The findings show evidence of a bias within some journals towards publishing papers by faculty from their home institution, at the expense of paper quality.
Archive | 2011
Yaniv Reingewertz
The debate regarding the effect of fiscal policy on the level of output is long and has not been settled yet. This paper suggests a new identification strategy as a mean to resolve the debate. I show that the distribution of federal grants is affected by whether state representatives in Congress are part of the majority party. States represented by Democrats while the Democrats hold the majority receive greater federal grants and increase their spending. The inverse is true in the case of Republican majorities. Therefore I use the share of Republican and Democrat state representatives in the majority party as instrumental variables to state spending. The results suggest state spending multiplier is about 3.4, and that additional 54,350
Local Government Studies | 2015
Yaniv Reingewertz
of state spending generate an additional job. These estimate abstract from adverse effects of taxes or deficits on the economy.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space | 2018
Yaniv Reingewertz; Itai Beeri
This paper analyzes the link between fiscal balance and political competition. Two conflicting hypotheses are formulated and tested in the literature, with no consensus as to which is correct. The first hypothesis states that political competition increases the accountability of politicians and thus increasing the efficiency of the public sector. The second states the opposite, suggesting that political competition leads to inefficiencies which are the result of the necessity to form a coalition. I test these hypotheses with budgetary and political data on municipalities in Israel for the years 1997-2006. The results suggest that the aforementioned hypotheses could both hold true, depending on the level of the competition. Low levels of political competition are associated with large debts. However, high levels of political competition are also associated with large debts, while the smallest levels of debt arise when political competition is intermediate. Low levels of political competition might be caused by the tendency of Arab residents to vote according to their clan affiliation. I also find evidence of political budget cycles in Israeli municipalities, where election years result in greater deficits. These cycles might be another mechanism by which the effect of political competition takes place, as they are also affected by the level of political competition.
Archive | 2017
Fidel Perez-Sebastian; Ohad Raveh; Yaniv Reingewertz
The recent economic slowdown has revealed weaknesses in existing fiscal arrangements and led to the reintroduction of enforcement mechanisms on local authorities within the OECD. One extreme intervention approach for municipalities in financial distress includes neutralization of the elected local leadership and its replacement with a convened committee. Yet how effective are such enforcement methods in the stabilization of local authorities? We present, for the first time, a complete empirical examination of how neutralization affects the financial performance of failing local authorities, as measured by municipal spending, revenue and fiscal balance. We apply the difference-in-differences methodology using data on 77 Israeli municipalities during 2000–2011 to answer this question. We find a sizeable effect of convened committees on the financial performance of local authorities, including an 11% reduction in municipal labor costs, a 6% reduction in current deficits and a 40% reduction in municipal debt. We also find some evidence for an increase in local tax collection. The fall in debt is partly due to an increase in targeted government transfers and may reflect increased political trust. We discuss the results in light of possible tensions between the neutralization approach and local democracy and conclude that while convened committees improve the financial performance of local authorities, they should be reserved for extreme municipal crises.
Applied Economics | 2018
Joseph McCormack; Yaniv Reingewertz
How do state tax rates respond to federal tax shocks? This paper presents a novel mechanism of heterogeneous vertical tax externalities across state-levels of fiscal advantage, showing that tax increases can be expansionary -- even without their reinvestment. States rich in natural resources have a fiscal advantage in the inter-state competition over production factors which allows them to respond better to increases in federal taxes and, consequently, attract capital from other parts of the nation. We add heterogeneity in fiscal advantage levels to an otherwise standard model of vertical tax externalities and horizontal tax competition. The model shows that, irrespective of federal redistribution, the contractionary effect of a federal tax increase can be overturned in fiscally advantaged states, through an increase in their tax base. Using the case of the U.S., and narrative-based measures of federal tax shocks a-la Romer and Romer (2010), we provide empirical evidence for the various aspects of this mechanism. Specifically, our baseline estimates indicate that, controlling for federal transfers, a 1% increase in the GDP share of capital-related federal taxes at the beginning of a year increases the growth rate of the per capita tax base by approximately 0.7% in high fiscal advantage states at the end of it.
Climate Policy | 2017
Yaniv Reingewertz
ABSTRACT How does line-item veto (LIV) power affect a governor’s ability to structure the state budget? Is LIV power only relevant as a partisan tool? Is it still relevant when the state legislature can override the veto? We use a rich disaggregated data set to test the effect of the gubernatorial LIV on state budgets, controlling for political factors such as party affiliation of the governor and legislature, minority status of the governor, and the legislature’s ability to override a LIV. Our results suggest that LIV power has very weak influence, if any, on governors’ ability to influence state budgets.
Archive | 2016
Yaniv Reingewertz
A recent article suggests that ‘the leader (in climate change mitigation) sets an example with the intention of motivating others to contribute to the public good’ [Schwerhoff, G. (2016). The economics of leadership in climate change mitigation. Climate Policy, 16, 196–214]. The article further suggests that this leadership role will increase climate change mitigation by followers. Schwerhoff lists three reasons for improved mitigation: reciprocal behaviour by the followers, an increase in the perceived value of climate change mitigation and reductions in costs. I will show several shortcomings in these mechanisms. In addition, I will survey other mechanisms that suggest an adverse effect of leadership on mitigation by other nations. These include free-riding and carbon leakage. The effect of these mechanisms possibly dominates the positive effect of leadership. The leadership role in itself is not projected to increase climate change mitigation in following countries. A more dominant role of the leader, e.g. in establishing Climate Clubs and putting sanctions on non-club trading partners, is needed.