【精品】法学专业本科毕业论文之外文翻译（选举的奖励和社会服务的改进）.docVIP

Electoral Incentives and Social Service Improvements Since the late 1990s, more than 20 studies have used either cross-section or timeseries statistical analyses, or both, to test the impact of democracy on social sector spending and performance. Appendices 1 and 2 summarize most of these studies, grouping them according to whether they focus on determinants of spending or on outputs (such as enrollment or immunization) and outcomes (such as literacy or infant mortality rates). Two studies use both spending and outcomes as dependent variables, and are therefore listed in both appendix tables. While democracy—especially competitive elections--is the primary causal variable in many of these studies, in others, it is one of a battery of independent variables. The studies are not precisely comparable. They cover different periods, ranging from one to 90 years. Some focus on a specific region; others are global in scope. Numbers of countries range from 14 to 191. Dependent and independent variables also vary. Many studies use composite indices of democracy, most commonly Polity III or IV, and/or Freedom House scores as their major causal variable. Amongthose that use spending as their main dependent variable, some define social sectorexpenditures to include social security transfers plus public spending on educationand health, while others are less inclusive, focusing on education and health only, or on narrower categories such as primary education. Specific hypotheses and modeling methodologies also vary. In view of these variations, it is striking that many of the studies concur on certain findings. All but one find that democracy is associated with higher relative spending on social sectors, after introducing appropriate controls. Several suggest more nuanced associations between democracy and increased spending, differing across sectors, over time, or during hard times/Appendix 1 provides more detail. The studies capsuled in Appendix 2 address the more basic que