The Economic Policy Consequences of Electoral Systems: Can Proportional Representation Survive Globalization?

Eckstein and Electoral Systems

Three major questions about electoral systems (with tentative answers):

Brief Review of Electoral Systems

Two-Party Seat-Vote Functions

Policy Effects of Electoral Systems: Major Findings, 1980-present

Strong link to Hall, Soskice, et al., Varieties of Capitalism

Trade, Size, and PR

Imports as a percent of GDP, 1999

Natural log of population, 2000

Imports as a percent of GDP, 1999

Natural log of population, 2000

Quick, incomplete, summary of state of evidence

Real Prices and PR: More Recent Work

Five-Year Moving Average of Real Prices, All Democratic Countries and Years

How does this happen?

Why, if at all, does this matter? Does it make countries less competitive?

Goods Trade as Percentage of GDP

Upshot: “new” globalization forces economies, developed and less developed, to

Conclusion: Globalization probably threatens PR in at least two ways:

Some crucial tests of this argument for the future:

Imports, as a percent of GDP, 1999

Population, natural log, 2000

Government Spending as % of GDP, 1999

Worldwide : Three-year moving average

Worldwide : Five-year moving average

OECD : Three-year moving average:

OECD : Five-year moving average:

NON-OECD : Three-year moving average

NON-OECD : Five-year moving average

Dependent variable is imports/GDP, OECD only

Emerging Giant