Joel W Simmons
Biographic Data
| ID | 3717643 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joel W Simmons |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joel W |
| FAMILY NAME | Simmons |
| SIGNATURE | SIMMONS J W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8339-8768 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 191 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Democracy and Economic Growth
Is democracy a boon for economic growth or a hindrance? This brief essay reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions to this age-old question and highlights some potentially fruitful avenues for future research
Corruption and Voter Turnout
When studying corruption’s consequences for voter turnout, reverse causality hinders identification; corruption may affect turnout, but an engaged citizenry may also improve governance. However, because good instruments are hard to find, most studies do not adjust for the issue. Here, I surmount the endogeneity problem by predicting turnout among second generation Americans with the level of corruption in their ancestral country. The core intuiti…
Segregated Economies in an Integrated World
I argue that exchange rates are an underappreciated explanation for the significant variation in the extent of female labor force participation in developing countries. Occupational segregation in developing countries is such that women working outside of the home tend to be segregated in labor-intensive export-oriented industries. Consequently, when an overvalued exchange rate increases export prices, it reduces commensurately the demand for fem…
Detecting anomalies in data on government violence
Can data on government coercion and violence be trusted when the data are generated by state itself? In this paper, we investigate the extent to which data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) regarding the use of force by corrections officers against prison inmates between 2008 and 2017 conform to Benford's Law. Following a growing data forensics literature, we expect misreporting of the use-of-force in Califor…
Party system structure and its consequences for foreign direct investment
Studies of foreign direct investment’s (FDI’s) determinants focus on irreversibility as the main source of governments’ credibility problems. Here, we highlight an underexplored source of time-inconsistency dilemmas: geographic agglomeration within a country. FDI’s tendency to agglomerate creates visible inequalities in the country and generates demands for geographic income redistribution. Unchecked, such redistributive pressures can dissuade in…
Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services—corrigendum
Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services
In this paper, we examine consequences of party system nationalization. We argue that the degree to which party systems are nationalized should affect the provision of public benefits by governments. When political competition at the national level occurs between parties that represent specific sub-national constituencies, then the outcomes of policy debates and conflicts can lead to an undersupply of nationally focused public services. We test o…
Resource Wealth and Women’s Economic and Political Power in the U.S. States
Ross argues that oil wealth reduces women’s economic and political power, but critics maintain that accounting for a community’s attitudes toward gender equality makes the gendered resource curse disappear. This article disentangles the two perspectives by studying the effects of resource wealth on women’s economic and political status in the U.S. states, where resource wealth varies significantly while cultural differences are comparatively smal…
Do voters count? Institutions, voter turnout, and public goods provision in India
Openness, Uncertainty, and Social Spending
We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import compet…
The Personal Vote and the Efficacy of Education Spending
In this article we explore the ways in which incentives to cultivate a personal vote affect the efficiency of education spending in developing democracies. We argue that where the electoral system provides incentives for political particularism, resources are allocated less efficiently and the effect of increased spending on literacy is diminished. We test our hypotheses using data on education spending and performance in over 40 developing democ…
The Politics of Hard Choices
A cetitral conipnnetit of International Monetary Ftind (IMF) programs is reducing governmeni budge! delicits. We ask how domestic political consider-ations shape the distribution of cuts made by governments in IMF programs. Our central tinding is that IMF programs shrink the role played by domestic politics. While democracies allocate larger shares of their budgets to public services in the absence of IMF programs, the difference between Jemoctac…
The Personal Vote and the Efficacy of Education Spending
In this article we explore the ways in which incentives to cultivate a personal vote affect the efficiency of education spending in developing democracies. We argue that where the electoral system provides incentives for political particularism, resources are allocated less efficiently and the effect of increased spending on literacy is diminished. We test our hypotheses using data on education spending and performance in over 40 developing democ…
The Politics of Hard Choices
A cetitral conipnnetit of International Monetary Ftind (IMF) programs is reducing governmeni budge! delicits. We ask how domestic political consider-ations shape the distribution of cuts made by governments in IMF programs. Our central tinding is that IMF programs shrink the role played by domestic politics. While democracies allocate larger shares of their budgets to public services in the absence of IMF programs, the difference between Jemoctac…
Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services
In this paper, we examine consequences of party system nationalization. We argue that the degree to which party systems are nationalized should affect the provision of public benefits by governments. When political competition at the national level occurs between parties that represent specific sub-national constituencies, then the outcomes of policy debates and conflicts can lead to an undersupply of nationally focused public services. We test o…
Openness, Uncertainty, and Social Spending
We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import compet…
Resource Wealth and Women’s Economic and Political Power in the U.S. States
Ross argues that oil wealth reduces women’s economic and political power, but critics maintain that accounting for a community’s attitudes toward gender equality makes the gendered resource curse disappear. This article disentangles the two perspectives by studying the effects of resource wealth on women’s economic and political status in the U.S. states, where resource wealth varies significantly while cultural differences are comparatively smal…
Do voters count? Institutions, voter turnout, and public goods provision in India
Party system structure and its consequences for foreign direct investment
Studies of foreign direct investment’s (FDI’s) determinants focus on irreversibility as the main source of governments’ credibility problems. Here, we highlight an underexplored source of time-inconsistency dilemmas: geographic agglomeration within a country. FDI’s tendency to agglomerate creates visible inequalities in the country and generates demands for geographic income redistribution. Unchecked, such redistributive pressures can dissuade in…
Corruption and Voter Turnout
When studying corruption’s consequences for voter turnout, reverse causality hinders identification; corruption may affect turnout, but an engaged citizenry may also improve governance. However, because good instruments are hard to find, most studies do not adjust for the issue. Here, I surmount the endogeneity problem by predicting turnout among second generation Americans with the level of corruption in their ancestral country. The core intuiti…
Detecting anomalies in data on government violence
Can data on government coercion and violence be trusted when the data are generated by state itself? In this paper, we investigate the extent to which data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) regarding the use of force by corrections officers against prison inmates between 2008 and 2017 conform to Benford's Law. Following a growing data forensics literature, we expect misreporting of the use-of-force in Califor…
The Politics of Hard Choices
A cetitral conipnnetit of International Monetary Ftind (IMF) programs is reducing governmeni budge! delicits. We ask how domestic political consider-ations shape the distribution of cuts made by governments in IMF programs. Our central tinding is that IMF programs shrink the role played by domestic politics. While democracies allocate larger shares of their budgets to public services in the absence of IMF programs, the difference between Jemoctac…
The Personal Vote and the Efficacy of Education Spending
In this article we explore the ways in which incentives to cultivate a personal vote affect the efficiency of education spending in developing democracies. We argue that where the electoral system provides incentives for political particularism, resources are allocated less efficiently and the effect of increased spending on literacy is diminished. We test our hypotheses using data on education spending and performance in over 40 developing democ…
Openness, Uncertainty, and Social Spending
We extend the literature on openness and spending in developing countries arguing that the effect of increasing openness depends on both regime type and the level of openness. Democracies respond to increases in openness by increasing spending while dictatorships respond by decreasing spending. However, the degree to which countries pursue the strategy of choice depends on the level of openness. In autarkic countries, an increase in import compet…
Resource Wealth and Women’s Economic and Political Power in the U.S. States
Ross argues that oil wealth reduces women’s economic and political power, but critics maintain that accounting for a community’s attitudes toward gender equality makes the gendered resource curse disappear. This article disentangles the two perspectives by studying the effects of resource wealth on women’s economic and political status in the U.S. states, where resource wealth varies significantly while cultural differences are comparatively smal…
Do voters count? Institutions, voter turnout, and public goods provision in India
Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services
In this paper, we examine consequences of party system nationalization. We argue that the degree to which party systems are nationalized should affect the provision of public benefits by governments. When political competition at the national level occurs between parties that represent specific sub-national constituencies, then the outcomes of policy debates and conflicts can lead to an undersupply of nationally focused public services. We test o…
Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services—corrigendum
Party system structure and its consequences for foreign direct investment
Studies of foreign direct investment’s (FDI’s) determinants focus on irreversibility as the main source of governments’ credibility problems. Here, we highlight an underexplored source of time-inconsistency dilemmas: geographic agglomeration within a country. FDI’s tendency to agglomerate creates visible inequalities in the country and generates demands for geographic income redistribution. Unchecked, such redistributive pressures can dissuade in…
Detecting anomalies in data on government violence
Can data on government coercion and violence be trusted when the data are generated by state itself? In this paper, we investigate the extent to which data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) regarding the use of force by corrections officers against prison inmates between 2008 and 2017 conform to Benford's Law. Following a growing data forensics literature, we expect misreporting of the use-of-force in Califor…
Segregated Economies in an Integrated World
I argue that exchange rates are an underappreciated explanation for the significant variation in the extent of female labor force participation in developing countries. Occupational segregation in developing countries is such that women working outside of the home tend to be segregated in labor-intensive export-oriented industries. Consequently, when an overvalued exchange rate increases export prices, it reduces commensurately the demand for fem…
Corruption and Voter Turnout
When studying corruption’s consequences for voter turnout, reverse causality hinders identification; corruption may affect turnout, but an engaged citizenry may also improve governance. However, because good instruments are hard to find, most studies do not adjust for the issue. Here, I surmount the endogeneity problem by predicting turnout among second generation Americans with the level of corruption in their ancestral country. The core intuiti…
Democracy and Economic Growth
Is democracy a boon for economic growth or a hindrance? This brief essay reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions to this age-old question and highlights some potentially fruitful avenues for future research
Economics (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (5 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Development economics (4 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Government (linguistics (4 works)