The paper investigates the relation between effective demand, income distribution and unemployment empirically. Its aim is to evaluate Keynesian, Kaldorian and neoclassical hypotheses about the determination of labor market variables. To do so, a vector autoregression model consisting of capital accumulation, capacity utilization, the profit share, unemployment and the growth of labor productivity is estimated. A general post-Keynesian model following the lines of Kalecki and Kaldor is presented and provides the specification for a structural VAR. The model is estimated for the USA, UK and France. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

In this study, a Kaleckian-Post-Keynesian macroeconomic model, which is an extended version of the Bhaduri and Marglin (1990) model, serves as the starting point. The merit of a Kaleckian model for our purposes is that it highlights the dual function of wages as a component of aggregate demand as well as a cost item as opposed to the mainstream economics, which perceive wages merely as a cost item. Depending on the relative magnitude of these two effects, Kaleckian models distinguish between profit-led and wage-led regimes, where the latter is defined as a low rate of accumulation being caused by a high profit share. Are actual economies wage-led or profit-led? Current orthodoxy implicitly assumes that they are profit-led, and thus supports the neoliberal policy agenda. The purpose of the paper is to carry this discussion into the empirical terrain, and to test whether accumulation and employment are profit-led in two groups of countries. We do so by means of a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model. The model is estimated for USA, UK and France to represent the major developed countries, and for Turkey and Korea to represent developing countries. The latter are chosen since they represent two different export-oriented growth experiences. The results of the adjustment experiences of both countries are in striking contrast to orthodox theory, however they also present counter-examples to each other in terms of their ways of integrating into the world economy. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

Die derzeitige Wiederkehr von protektionistischen Maßnahmen und Illiberalismus erfordert ein detaillierteres Verständnis der Wechselwirkungen zwischen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Faktoren. Die vorliegende Doktorarbeit besteht aus vier Artikeln, die unser Verständnis der komplexen Wechselwirkungen zwischen Handel, Demokratie, Entwicklung und Konflikt voranbringen. Der erste Artikel (Boese 2015) fragt: Führen Revolutionen zu mehr Demokratie? Die untersuchten revolutionären Konflikte sind positiv mit dem demokratischen Weg eines Landes verbunden. Darüber hinaus führt der Artikel ein neues Maß für Demokratie ein, den (X-) Pol-Index. Der zweite Artikel (Boese 2019) vergleicht die Demokratiemaße von PolityIV, Freedom House und V-Dem. V-Dem Maße übertreffen die anderen in allen Bereichen. Der Artikel bietet eine Einführung in die Demokratiemessung, einen Vergleich der Vor- und Nachteile jedes Maßes in empirischen Analysen und Fallstudien, um die Unterschiede zwischen den Indizes zu veranschaulichen. Der dritte Artikel (Boese & Kamin 2019) untersucht das Problem inkonsistenter Länderkodierungen zwischen verschiedenen Makrodatensätzen. Es führt zu einer Verzerrung der Stichprobenauswahl, da sich in Konfliktländern oft Name und Grenzen des Staates ändern. Dadurch wird die Zuverlässigkeit von Schlussfolgerungen aus statistischen Analysen, insbesondere in der Konfliktökonomie, eingeschränkt. Detaillierte Übersichtstabellen der Länderkodierungsdifferenzen werden bereitgestellt. Der vierte Artikel (mit K. Kamin, CAU Kiel) untersucht die Wechselwirkungen von Demokratie, Entwicklung, Handel und Konflikt. In einem länderspezifischen VAR werden die Auswirkungen von Schocks auf einen der vier Faktoren untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass diese Effekte im Laufe der Zeit in und innerhalb von Ländern sehr heterogen sind. Der Artikel erhielt den Michael D. Intrilligator Best PhD Student Paper Award auf der 23. International Conference on Economics and Security in Madrid (Juni 2019). / The current return to protectionist measures coinciding with a rise of illiberalism triggers the need for a more detailed understanding of the interactions of economic and political dimensions. This thesis consists of four articles advancing our understanding of the complex interactions between trade, democracy, development and conflict. The first article (Boese 2015) asks: do revolutions lead to more democracy? The revolutionary conflicts examined are positively associated with a country's democratic path. In addition, the article introduces a new measure of democracy, the (X-)Pol Index. The second article (Boese 2019) compares measure validity and reliability of Polity2, Freedom House and V-Dem democracy indices. The latter surpass the former in all relevant areas. The article provides an introduction to democracy measurement, a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each measure in empirical analyses and several case studies to illustrate differences across the three indices. The third article (Boese & Kamin 2019) shows that in spite of standardization efforts the problem of inconsistent country coding across and within disciplines persists. This leads to sample selection bias as countries in conflict often undergo state name and border changes. In turn, reliability of inferences drawn from statistical analysis, in particular in conflict and peace economics, is limited. Detailed overview tables of the gravest country coding discrepancies are provided. The fourth article (with K. Kamin, CAU Kiel) examines the interactions of democracy, development, trade and conflict. It employs a country-specific VAR to study the effects of shocks in any of the four factors on one another. Results show that these effects are vastly heterogenous across and within countries over time. The article received the Michael D. Intrilligator Best PhD Student Paper Award at the 23rd International Conference on Economics and Security in Madrid, Spain (June 2019).