Vortrag von Dr. Florian Neumeier am 21.11.17: „Do Businessmen Make Good Governors?“

Im Rahmen des Forschungskolloquiums des Instituts für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Universität Freiburg möchten wir Sie herzlich zum Vortrag von

Dr.  Florian Neumeier

(ifo Institut München)

über das Thema

Do Businessmen Make Good Governors?

einladen.

Der Vortrag findet am Dienstag, 21. November 2017, 11:00 Uhr s.t. in Raum 2330 KG II statt.

Abstract:

This paper empirically evaluates the economic performance of U.S. state governors who came to the position from a business background (CEO governors), focusing on the growth rate of real personal income per capita, unemployment rate, private investment, and income inequality. Methodologically, I apply a matching method to account for the endogeneity of political selection. Using entropy balancing, I identify credible counterfactuals for CEO governors, that is, governors without a business background who took office under similar economic and fiscal situations. The main findings are as follows: First, descriptive statistics suggest that businesspeople tend to take office in times of economic and fiscal strain. Second, the tenures of CEO governors are associated with a 0.6 percentage points higher annual income growth rate, a 0.4 pp higher growth rate of the private capital stock, and a 0.6 percentage points lower unemployment rate than are the tenures of non-CEO governors. Also, state-level income inequality decreases when CEO governors hold office, indicating that low-income households benefit from the economic upswing. Third, the positive effect of having a CEO governor increases with time in office. Fourth, Republican CEO governors perform slightly better than their Democratic colleagues.