Shomron Center for Economic Policy Research

Here is the updated version of the report, presenting current state of our studies in political economy of the Family institution crisis. The family was targeted (actually, picked for destruction) by totalitarian intellectuals since Plato. Acute need to destroy it was declared in the Communist manifesto 1848 (as the Family and the Private Property institutions are strengthening each other). Modern politicians standing with Big Government and civilian bureaucrats are permanently in search of new opportunities to extend the budgets and discretionary powers. So our principal hypothesis looks quite reasonable, almost “natural”.

Government interventions into the traditional functioning of the family became an important factor in the recent family crisis in developed countries (fewer marriages, more divorces, and lower birth rate). This hypothesis has been tested statistically for the period from 1800 to 2010 with data from 17 established democracies.

We show that mandatory pension insurance might contribute to the reduction in fertility, with a lag of 40 years. Legislation encouraging a high level of female employment and mandating no-fault divorce rules is tested as an additional factor contributing to the divorce rate hike and birth rate fall. In addition, the concept of “the best interests of the child” encourages children to challenge parents’ authority; the latter reduces “demand” for children (and birthrate) even further.

The reason behind this effect is the rise of the welfare state, crowding out male and parental responsibilities.

The paper was originally presented at the Public Choice annual conference (New Orleans, 2012 “The gender role of the government: some explanations of family crisis”).

Political Factors Behind Cuts and Surges in Government Spending:  The Effects on Old Market Democracies and Post-Communist Countries

We tried to explain surges and cuts in governmental spending of Democratic countries by some of the political factors affecting governments’ abilities to balance the budget broadly discussed in the literature. We focus on territorial separatism, minority government, grand coalition, single party government, and the ruling party’s ideology. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of universal suffrage, which has caused the rise to power of modern left-wing parties and strong special interest groups within the bureaucracy.

Most political factors turn out to be time- and case-sensitive except for universal suffrage. A severe crisis can open the window of opportunity to cut public expenditure, while favorable economic conditions stimulate claims for redistribution and spikes in government spending. The most effective way to curb the instability of public finance is to strengthen pro-reformist political coalitions, claiming defense of national identity and moral values, that encourage austerity and are market-friendly.

The paper has been published by Problems of economic Transition, (Tailor and Francis)  vol. 59, no. 4, 2017, pp. 294-320 2017,  doi: 10.1080/10611991.2017.1321418

Early and unedited version of the article  you could find at SSRN site.

We are currently preparing a few courses based on our researches’ outcomes and data collected for our researches.

Syllabuses, tests and other materials for the courses will be presented at the specialized page at this site.

Currently you could find there two syllabuses:

Introductory course of Economics for non-economists  (Hebrew version  )

and

Political Economy of Defense and Security: priorities, budget, legal framework

For more syllabuses and more study materials visit the above mentioned page.

Journal of Constitutional Political Economy just published (Volume 28, Issue 4, December 2017 pp. 311-320) our article “A Proposal for a More Objective Measure of De Facto Constitutional Constraints”.

Simple and easily correctable measures of institutions are based on observable / detectable events, not on the experts’ personal opinion.

We tried to detect (initially) three types of events, so for each country at each year we ask just three questions:
1. Will the ruling elite leave power and join the opposition if it loses an election (the power rotation criterion developed by Adam Przeworski )?
2. Has the government ever lost in court and complied with the court’s decision even if the litigation significantly reduced its prestige and authority?
3. Can the media and opposition criticise the government [including (a) accusations about its incompetence, (b) immorality, or (c) crimes, and call for its replacement, without experiencing intimidation or punishment]?

…

see for further details the paper   Yanovskiy Moshe, Ginker Tim ” A Proposal for a More Objective Measure of De Facto Constitutional Constraints ” Journal of Constitutional Political Economy, DOI: 10.1007/s10602-017-9242-1, 2017

The full text of the article could be send by request (corresponding authors’ mail is yanovskiy.moshe at gmail.com).

After years of hysterical or totally senseless reviews and editors’ reactions we got from economic journals we had switched to military ones. Now we have got this very important for us publication in the Czech military Journal “Defence and Strategy” (Obrana a Strategie).

To clarify our point regarding conditionality of the Government’s ability to defend, to deter potential aggressor we referred to example from Czech history. Voters and the Government must promote (not punish) the most gifted military leaders like Jan Žižka – great leader and typical winner but not the “nice man” which could discuss matters of religious coexistence with Justin Trudeau.

Here is the article (just click it):

Yanovskiy Moshe, Zatcovetsky Ilia “How Butter beats the Guns” Defence and Strategy, 2017 Volume 17, Number 1 (June 2017) pp.141-154 doi 10.3849/1802-7199.17.2017.01.141-154;

and the Supplementary materials

Rabbinic court in Tel Aviv created precedent revitalizing “fault divorce” at least in the most severe cases of  misbehavior of “privileged” spouse.

The problem is, the precedent comes too late. The machinery of governmental crowding out the man from the family is too powerful already.

We stand with “privatization” of family life, for return to the family contract based regulation of intra -family issues, including divorce cases. Government belonging to bedroom and nursery spoils incentives of spouses and parents, causing infantile or ugly behavior, so we are exploring the issue in a number of out projects:

Does Government Crowds Out the Family?

The Limits of Governmental Intervention: Some Ways How Government Belongs in the Bedroom and Nursery