150 years of democracy? The case of New South Wales

New South Wales has a rich history of parliamentary democracy. As the oldest of the Australian States, it has provided a microcosm of the evolution of modern British-style democracy from the ‘hustings’ of the early colonial to the harbour views of the contemporary politicians’ offices. New South Wales’ political history is also rich with experimentation. The early introduction of the secret ballot, payment for members, the abolition of plural voting, and adult suffrage are well known. Although it needs to be recognized that it followed slightly behind that ‘ Paradise of Dissent’ South Australia on all those features.

Equally fascinating is the role of the Labour Party, whose campaigning on behalf of adult suffrage and payment for Members is fairly well known. Less known, but of great interest, were its activities on behalf of electoral reform, political accountability and easier enrolment and voting, particularly for ‘ itinerants’ at a time when its political base was in the rural workforce. New South Wales Labour was significant for its decision to stand alone, in contrast with its Victorian and New Zealand counterparts, which threw in their lot with the Progressives.

Strategic vote manipulation in a simple democracy

In both the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and employee buyouts, the common and crucial phenomenon is that some workers have two sources of income, namely wages and shares of profit. We analyze that phenomenon in an economy where workers are nonunionized and wages are determined by voting. If the employers sell a certain amount of shares of the capital stock to some non-risk-loving workers, these workers vote for the lowest possible wage along with the employers. As a result, all workers become equally worse off because of the competition among workers to buy those shares.

Temporal causality and the dynamics of democracy, emigration and real income in Fiji

This study is the first to explore temporal causality between democracy, emigration and real income in Fiji within a multivariate cointegration model. We find three long run relationships between democracy, emigration and real income. In the long run there is evidence that migration and democracy Granger cause real GDP in Fiji; real GDP and democracy Granger cause migration from Fiji and that real GDP and migration Granger cause democracy in Fiji. In the short run we find unidirectional Granger causality running from migration to real GDP and from democracy to real GDP, but neutrality between democracy and migration in the short run. We also extend the analysis to examine the degree of exogeneity of the variables beyond the sample period through considering the decomposition of variance and impulse response functions.

Does democracy facilitate economic growth or does economic growth facilitate democracy? an empirical study of Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the relationship between democracy and economic growth in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries. As our proxy for democracy we first use the democracy index constructed by Freedom House and then check the sensitivity of our findings using, as an alternative proxy for democracy, the Legislative Index of Electoral Competitiveness (LIEC). We find support for the Lipset hypothesis - in the long run, real GDP Granger causes democracy and an increase in GDP results in an improvement in democracy ??? in Botswana and Niger with both datasets, for Chad with the Freedom House data only and for Cote d???Ivoire and Gabon with the LIEC data only. Support for the compatibility hypothesis - in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a positive effect on real income - is found for Botswana with the Freedom House data and for Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa and Swaziland with the LIEC data. Support for the conflict hypothesis - in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a negative effect on real income - is found for Gabon with the Freedom House data and Sierra Leone with the LIEC data.