Quintin H. Beazer
Postdoctoral Research AssociateLeitner Program for International and Comparative Political Economy
Yale University
email: quintin.beazer{at}yale.edu
Why do some governments actively build regulatory environments that encourage business growth while others seemingly ignore opportunities to improve their economic environments? Arguing that leaders' responsiveness to investors depends upon their budgetary constraints, I contend that non-tax fiscal resources, such as natural resource income, blunt leaders' incentives to cater to business needs by reining in discretionary regulatory agents and ensuring that regulatory policies are applied in a consistent and predictable manner. The main empirical finding of the study shows that business actors in resource-rich regions of Russia experience greater regulatory uncertainty than firms operating in regions where government budgets must rely more completely on tax revenues.
Presentation given at the SSRC's Research and Policy Forum (May 2010).
How have IMF programs shaped economic transitions in the post-communist countries? Transition from a centrally planned economy to market-based economy has involved significant public sector reforms. While most of these countries have participated in IMF programs during the transition period, the degree to which economic reforms have progressed varies signicantly among these countries. In this project, We argue that more structural conditions hinder reform implementation by restricting governments' flexibility to deal with domestic opposition and reform challenges. Using EBRD data on the economic reforms of transition and an original dataset of IMF conditionality, we show that increasing number of structural conditions included in an IMF program has negative relationship with progress in economic reforms.
Presentation given at the Annual APSA Conference (September 2011).
How do financial windfalls affect budgetary priorities? To what extent are decisions about how to allocate financial windfalls contingent on whether governments require popular support to retain office? This paper investigates how sudden changes in state revenue affect spending on education in countries with varying degrees of democracy. We provide evidence based on a statistical analysis using both cross-national data for all developing countries, and the post-communist countries alone. The latter provide an especially useful test of the argument because of the revenue changes, both stark decline and unexpected windfall, brought on by abrupt political changes during the period of 1992 to 2004.
Presentation given at the Annual ISA Conference (Feb 2010).
More of my research projects are listed here.
