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This paper comprehensively investigates the effect of government ideology on the type of exchange rate regime that a country implements via multinomial logit and multinomial probit models for 147 countries in the period 1974-2009. Our results clearly indicate that a left-wing government increases the likelihood that a country implements a flexible regime in the classifications of exchange rate regimes. Nevertheless, evidence is weaker when using the de jure IMF course classification, which is set up by Ilzetzki et al. (). In a deeper investigation, we find that left-wing governments are more likely to choose a flexible regime relative to a fixed one in our sample of OECD, non- OECD and non-Eurozone countries, as the impacts from government ideology on the determinant of the choice of exchange rate regime in Eurozone countries disappear. More importantly, we present many explanations for exchange rate regime choices when macroeconomic conditions, political constraints and institutions impact the choice of exchange rate regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between environmental performance, corruption and economic growth using panel data of 87 countries covering the period from 2002 to 2012. The Environmental Performance Index is used for the first time to evaluate the environmental quality on economic growth. By employing both ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ panel models, we find that environmental performance is positively related to economic growth and is more significant in non-Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries. Moreover, when corruption is incorporated, the empirical estimation results indicate that although lower corruption helps economic growth in non-OECD countries, the negative coefficients of the three interactive terms show that the positive effect of environment performance on economic growth will drop, while greater environmental performance combined with natural resource abundance inevitably leads to inefficient bureaucracies and hence disadvantageous economic growth. As a result, policymakers in non-OECD countries should carefully ensure better government quality when they exhibit strong environmental performance so as to avoid any disadvantageous impact upon economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of government ideology on energy efficiency using data for a panel of 23 OECD countries over the 1980-2013 period. With dynamic panel data method applied, our evidence suggests that government ideology is a significant determinant of energy efficiency. Specifically, we show that left-wing parties are associated with energy efficiency improvements. Overall, our results are robust to the two measures of energy efficiency variables, alternative measures of government ideology variables, using annual and 3-year averages of the data, the inclusion of economic and political variables, and to model specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether natural disaster losses vary under the tenure of a government with a different ideology. Using panel data for 123 countries over the period of 1975-2013, we find that right-wing governments experience fewer natural disaster losses (measured by people's deaths, those affected, and economic damages) in the case of the full sample. We hence account for possible heterogeneity in our sample and re-estimate the empirical model between 30 OECD countries and 93 non-OECD countries. In summary, we again discover that right-wing governments suffer less natural disaster damages in non-OECD countries, but this effect is statistically insignificant at conventional levels in OECD countries. We believe that the results herein have important implications for the policies of disaster prevention. In addition, voters will be able to choose a responsible government via the voting booth in accordance with our findings. Overall, our results suggest that a more partisan ideology could more precisely capture policy attitudes, especially in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of natural disasters on the likelihood that a government is removed from office using panel data for 156 countries over the period 1975–2010. Employing a conditional logit model, we find that the occurrence of natural disasters, the number of natural disasters and disaster-related losses increase the chances that a government will be replaced. The magnitudes of these effects differ widely across natural disaster types, but are robust to the inclusion of economic and political variables and to model specifications. Overall, these findings are consistent across our sample of OECD and non-OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper applies the new heterogeneous panel cointegration technique to re-investigate the long-run comovements and causal relationships between tourism development and economic growth for OECD and nonOECD countries (including those in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Sahara Africa) for the 1990–2002 period. On the global scale, after allowing for the heterogeneous country effect, a cointegrated relationship between GDP and tourism development is substantiated. It is also determined that tourism development has a greater impact on GDP in nonOECD countries than in OECD countries, and when the variable is tourism receipts, the greatest impact is in Sub-Sahara African countries. Additionally, the real effective exchange rate has significant effects on economic growth. Finally, in the long run, the panel causality test shows unidirectional causality relationships from tourism development to economic growth in OECD countries, bidirectional relationships in nonOECD countries, but only weak relationships in Asia. Our empirical findings have major policy implications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using panel data unit root tests and panel cointegration tests, as well as estimation techniques appropriate for heterogeneous panels such as the full modified OLS, this paper re-examines the long-run co-movement and the causal relationship between GDP and social security expenditure in a bivariate model, employing data on 25 OECD countries from 1980 to 2001. Our cointegration test results show strong evidence in favour of the existence of a long-run equilibrium cointegrating relationship between GDP and social security expenditure after allowing for a heterogeneous country effect. Regarding the panel-based error correction model, we find that GDP and social security expenditure lack short-run causality, but reveal the existence of long-run bidirectional causality. This shows that, in the long run, economic growth must be based on a social welfare policy that should be carried out, and economic growth can facilitate contiguous development in a social welfare policy. Lastly, we also provide evidence to support that social security expenditure can affect growth through the savings and human capital accumulation in OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]