The Quantitative Peace

Class, Empathy, and Taxes

Several recent studies by three University of California psychologists, Michael Kraus, Paul Piff, and Dacher Keltner, suggest that individuals with lower class incomes are more empathetic and more altruistic than individuals with higher class incomes. They argue that since lower income individuals have to rely more on others to survive, they learn pro-social behaviors and learn to emphasize with others.

The results of these studies may explain why some individuals with a great deal of disposable income (1) are unaware of the magnitude of income inequality in the US, (2) believe they should pay the same tax rate as lower income individuals, and (3) want to reduce government spending on social programs. These studies can also explain the results of a recent CNN poll that suggests that individuals making under 50K a year are more likely than individuals making 50K a year or more to want the government to keep taxes high "so the government can use their money for programs to help lower-income people". 

 

Debt Ceiling

This information comes from the Office of Management and Budget's Historical Tables of the US Government's budget.  Just some basic information on the debt ceiling that might put the current political wrangling into greater context.  I will add the usual disclaimer that this is not my usual playground, so if anyone catches any mistakes please let me know.

Below is a quick graphic illustrating the points at which the debt ceiling has been raised since 1940.  These figures have not been adjusted for inflation.  The dots show the point at which the debt ceiling was raised, or a point at which a previous raise in the debt ceiling was reaffirmed/extended, while the line is intended to give the viewer a better ability to connect the dots (so to speak).  

This second graph adjusted the previous figures for inflation (billions of 2009 dollars).

Of note---If my count is right, President Reagan increased the debt ceiling 18 times during his administration, from a starting point of $985 billion to $2.8 trillion.  The Clinton administration increased the debt limit 6 times from $4.3 trillion to $5.95 trillion.  The second Bush administration 7 times from $6.4 trillion to $11.3 trillion.  Of the data available (it only runs through 2009 here) the Obama administration increased the debt limit from $11.3 trillion to $12.1 trillion.  

The real point at which the debt ceiling seems to take off is during the Reagan administration.  Prior to this point government seemed to keep closer tabs on the debt limit---although there are several dots on the graphics above prior to the Reagan administration, many of these cases are simply reaffirming or briefly extending previous raises to the debt limit.  Others can probably speak to this in greater detail, but this seems to make sense given that the Reagan administration was characterized by unusually high peacetime military spending.  The second point at which the debt ceiling rises seems to be during the second Bush presidency.  This also seems to make sense given the tremendous levels of spending for the war on terror.  

Republicans have been campaigning on the fiscal irresponsibility of Democrats, but a cursory inspection of these charts suggest that recent Republican presidencies don't have a great track record of keeping the debt ceiling down.  Earlier Republican presidencies (Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford) seem to have been better at this.  That said, this does not take into account a host of other factors (international crises, which party controls Congress, divided government, etc.) so this is far from conclusive.  Still, if the argument is that the president is accountable for what happens on their watch then the fact remains that Republican presidents have presided over the greatest increases in the debt ceiling.    

Aid to Pakistan

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy has a piece up regarding the changes to US-Pakistani relations that may be coming out of this week's events.  Rogin is specifically discussing the debate in Congress over cutting military assistance to Pakistan.  Clearly this discussion has a long way to go, and the article indicates that significant divisions are emerging in both houses of Congress over what the appropriate response is. 

More below...

Sci-Fi Poli Sci, Episode I: Regime Types Across Sci-Fi Universes

Assuming that one is looking for them, it is fairly easy to find internet arguments that stem from comparisons among and between science fiction universes, and a great many of these arguments center on comparing governments within those universes. Which government is more democratic: Star Wars' Galactic Republic or Star Trek's United Federation? Who is more repressive: Firefly's Alliance or Star Wars' Galactic Empire? How do the military assets of the Stargate universe stack up against those found in all of the other sci-fi universes? Indeed, given that nerd culture is now nearly synonymous with pop culture, these conversations seem to be quite common, particularly if one regularly eats lunch with the bloggers at The Quantitative Peace.  However, while some political scientists and economists have tried to answer questions that have clearly spawned from science fiction, I am unaware of any that have attempted to apply some of the more commonly used quantitative measurements in political science to the governments seen in such universes. Therefore, this post represents a first attempt to apply quantititative measures from political science to the polities envisioned in some of the most beloved science fiction franchises, in an attempt to answer the question: Which sci-fi governments are the most democratic, and which are the most autocratic? In the paragraphs below, I take a close look at a few sci-fi governments and use a couple of the more popular measures of regime type to compare them.

While this is mostly an attempt to have some Friday fun with political science measurement, I do not think it is an entirely frivolous exercise.  If our measurement schemes are valid, then they should apply quite nicely across regimes, even imagined ones.  Furthermore, as someone who regularly teaches classes about quantitative research in political science, I think there may be instructional advantages to using fictional regimes to introduce students to the methodological challenges associated with developing valid quantitative measures of such things as human rights, regime type, military capabilities, etc.  In fact, the use of fictional governments may allow the instructor to escape the various normative hang-ups and national attachments that can often impede undergraduates' willingness to pursue strict coding guidelines in quantitative data collection.  Thus, to quote Paul Krugman (1978, 2), "while the subject of this [post] is silly," the content should make sense, and as such, the post should be viewed as a "serious analysis of a ridiculous subject."

Healthcare Incentives

I've apparently been sitting on this post for a while, so this might be (is quite literally) old news for many out there.  It's an op-ed piece from The New York Times from a few months back on the healthcare legislation (No, this it not about IR).   

What caught my eye was at the end of the article when he starts talking about the incentives created by mandating that people obtain health insurance.  The gist of it is that in spite of all of the cries about this legislation representing the onslaught of the communist hoards, this kind of legislation might actually help to promote the capitalist spirit.  Leonhardt (the author) argues that ensuring that everyone has access to decent healthcare and retirement will allow/encourage individuals to take greater risks than they otherwise would.  When individuals get healthcare primarily through their employer, and when individual premiums are generally through the roof, thereby leading many healthy people to not buy insurance if they don't already have it, people will be more reluctant to leave the safety of their cushy corporate or government job for the sake of starting up a business.  Leaving that job means having to provide yourself with insurance at a much higher cost, and this is something that those with a family may be especially reluctant to do.

I think this article has two particularly interesting points.  1) It challenges the typical narrative that surrounds the healthcare by offering a third view, asserting that this does not have to be a zero-sum game between fans of the free-market and fans of social welfare programs, and 2) offers a decent example of the potentially counterintuitive effects that some legislation might have.  

One problem that I have with this argument is that it assumes most individuals are generally worried about the provision of healthcare for their families, and seems to ignore that other important aspect that employment carries---money.  While ensuring your children's health coverage is certainly important, putting food on the table is also important.  If one parent's income can provide for the family so the other parent can give a crack at starting a new company, then that's great.  However, I suspect that many people would still be reluctant to leave their jobs knowing that this will potentially slice their family income in half.  Even if everyone is still covered by the spouse's workplace coverage, that's a pretty big gamble.  This does not mean that Leonhardt's argument is wrong per se, but that it may simply apply to a much smaller subsample of the population than he makes it sound.  I would imagine that this would also have some minor effect in increasing the unemployment rate, if we assume that of all the folks that do decide to take this gamble, the majority will not succeed in starting up a successful business.     

I think this is a generally incomplete picture, but fundamentally serves as a decent example of how the effects of legislation can be counterintuitive because they alter the basic incentive structures that people face.  Granted, it will take several years to find out if the legislation has ever had these sorts of effects.

 

Facts and Stuff on the Distributions of Income and Race in America

Via Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage, an article on this recent Gallup poll regarding people's income and their perceptions of income distributions, tax burdens, etc. 

The thrust of the article is that there are some disparities between where people fall in the overall income distribution and their perceptions of how the tax burden should be distributed---Not my normal thing, but interesting nevertheless.

More below...

A Quick Word on Libya

Conference seasons is chugging along, so blogging has been sparse after my early-spring surge.  But I had a couple of thoughts on the goings on abroad---mainly (entirely actually) about Libya.

First, I'm surprised that I haven't been hearing about more just how little we seem to know about the goals and composition of the "rebel movement" in Libya.  I suspect that referring to it as a homogenous or single movement is by no means an accurate depiction of what's going on.  I'm primarily surprised that this subject has not come up far more frequently given our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I know these wars happened a long time ago...yeah, that sounds right...but surely there were lessons to be learned from the complexities that domestic tribal structures and factions introduced for a foreign power trying to build a new set of governmental institutions during, and subsequent to a military occupation.

Second, my impression is that the approach most conservative pundits and policymakers are trying to take in attacking President Obama's handling of US involvement in Libya is that his policy of limited engagement is "amateurish" (as I seem to recall Newt Gingrich referring to it).  Rather, their implicit argument is that unless Obama declares regime change and boots on the ground to be our policy, then our mission/mandate is "unclear".  Essentially this is the debate between limited uses of military force versus full military engagements.  But given my first point (see previous paragraph) I'm surprised that this is an acceptable tack to take.  Can you really attack a president as being incompetant for setting limits on further military interventions when we are still trying to complete two other wars that have taken about a decade, billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and where the outcome is still highly uncertain?  Do Republicans really believe that this approach is based on solid ground?  Do/would their own constituents really support escalation simply on the basis of partisan opposition to the president?  To put it differently, do they really believe that the use of force cannot be "competant" unless it involves large-scale mobilization and occupation?  It seems to me that the aforementioned wars, fought so long ago, in a time far far away...and probably with light sabers...have shown us that even when we fully mobilize our forces, supplement them with thousands of private contractors and some foreign military forces, the goals and objectives can still be incredibly vague and uncertain. 

Am I missing something?  If it's about light sabers I don't want to hear it. 

Maps Maps Maps, Part Deux

I posted a few days ago about openheatmap.com, a website that will convert your csv files into fancy thermal maps.  One problem with our initial attempts to map out the presence of American military forces abroad was that the data are highly skewed.  Some countries host upwards of 50,000--60,000 American military personnel in the year we're looking at (2005).  In the past this figure was even higher---Germany at one point plays host to roughly 250,000 members of the American military during the Cold War.  

As you can imagine, we don't have that many soldiers in most countries.  The original map I posted was somewhat misleading, as countries such as China and Russia appeared to have more soldiers within their boarders than they actually have, and this was mostly the result of the combination of skewed data and the way that software color-coded countries.  Phil Arena suggested logging the troop values to see if this would help to take care of the issue:

 

I've changed the colors from blues to reds, as I think this helps a bit, but the figures used to generate the map above are the logged values of troops within the country.  The paler countries obviously have fewer soldiers than the darker countries.  Overall I think this map looks better, but there is still a fairly substantial amount of variation that is being masked by the limited range of tones.  For example, Iran is actually coded as having one American soldier present during 2005, which explains why it's a pale tan/organge.  Nevertheless, I think the important information that the map is intended to convey (namely the extent to which the US military has at least some presence virtually everywhere) is still there. 

On a final note, I also found that the map doesn't distinguish between 0 values and positive values---rather, a 0 and a 1 will share the same color.  Any observations that have a 0 value need to be dropped out of the data before the map is created.  This is kind of a funny feature, but something that users should be aware of.   

Maps Maps Maps

Back in December I had a brief post about CRACK, a mapmaking software package for Macs.  The downside was that CRACK only worked for making maps of the United States.  As the need has arisen, Michael Allen and I began looking for something similar that could handle world maps.  This brings me to OpenHeatMap, an online platform for making those fancy looking thermal heat maps using data from a spreadsheet.  We were looking for something to visually display some data that we have on US Military Personnel abroad, and this seems to work pretty well.  Here's an example:

The program lets you mess with some of the details, such as borders, colors, etc.  The only downside is that it does not appear to allow you to save an image.  Mac users have the option of taking screen shots by selecting particular areas on the screen, but I don't think PCs have this feature yet.  Anywho, if you have a Mac, this lack of a downloadable file probably won't matter too much to you.  Also, there are some small troop deployments to some microstates that this map does not display--getting it to recognize some of the country names in the data may also be a bit of a struggle.   

Also, the data used for making this map was obtained from Tim Kane at the Heritage Foundation. 

 

The Domestic Side of Things

Clearly I'm trying to make up for a post drought from the past couple of months.  I'll leave the more in-depth commentary to someone who has been following this situation more closely, but it looks like the Wisconsin State Government is experiencing a wheeeeee-bit of a principal-agent problem (via Boing Boing).

Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol

I will say that it's not immediately clear to me whether we're talking about off-duty cops only, or if we're talking about both on and off-duty police officers.  If the latter are protesting that would seem to be less of a problem, but the article seems to indicate that on-duty officers are the ones refusing to remove protestors from the capitol.  On the other hand, the man in the video looks more to be an off-duty officer expressing support (if his jacket is any indication).