Challenger Sanders v Challenger Trump

Sanders and Trump both side with flyover country rather than the Washington bubble.  This approach is valuable on election days, albeit creating much personal inconvenience on the days in between.

As part of this, both will speak some of the truisms that are supposed to be off limits.  E.g., Trump's "American carnage" in his inaugural address (if you think that was not a truism, look here).  Or Sanders' admiration of the Cuban literacy campaign (as impressive as it was for literacy results, it was even more impressive as a political move, helping to cement Castro's power for many decades).

A difference between Sanders and Trump on this is that Trump simultaneously says the politically incorrect while expanding the boundaries of his brand.  He says the truth in a way that goads his opponents into vigorously denying that very truth.  "American carnage" is one example among many.  This is one of Trump's valuable skills for operating in our world where ideas do not have copyrights.  By contrast, when Sanders says something true he says it in a way in which competitors can adopt it for themselves.

Sanders is fundamentally an ideologue, whereas neither Trump nor voters are.  This allows Trump to take on political opponents, and even appreciate their strengths, without personally insulting their voters.  Sanders seems tied to a lot of dogma around social policy.  As long as Sanders has to repeat that Trump is supposedly "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic" etc., he is in imminent danger of the basket-of-deplorables trap: describing half of America as the same or at least having them hear it that way.  I doubt Sanders realizes how similar he sounds to Mrs. Clinton on this subject.

As of 2016, neither Trump nor Sanders showed much allegiance to a political party.  This removes some constraints on their quest for electoral victory, but discards some of the value that party brings, such as credibly lengthening the planning horizon.  That value has to be replaced by something.  Trump helped replace it with his list of judge candidates.  And with long-horizon political aspirations for Ivanka and others.  I don't yet see what will be Sanders' replacement.

Trump is smarter.  Take the controversies that the two ignite.  By insisting that fracking be banned, Sanders seems unaware that Pennsylvania is a swing state.  By more easily acknowledging accomplishments of Castro than of Trump, Sanders seems unaware that Florida is a swing state filled with people who voted for Trump but not Castro.

(also an interesting exposition of "identification in difference-in-differences").

Today Trump is POTUS and has results to showcase.  POTUS Trump will be bragging about promises kept while Sanders through backchannels will be telling people not to worry that his promises will be kept.  But my purpose here is to compare them as challenger candidates.

How government employment can undermine democracy

Citizens in a democracy can criticize their government and its laws without government reprisal.  But what happens when your government is not only the enforcer of law, but also your boss?  Your boss, of course, is less willing to have you in his employ if you are speaking out against him.

An example from last weekend:

I spoke to a young woman who was shortly due to sit examinations to become a judge. She thought there was a good chance that her role in assisting the local [Catalan] referendum process would destroy her chances of becoming a judge, and said that one of her fellow students was too scared to even vote for the same reason.

Of course a judge is an occupation naturally in the public sector, but the point is: the more occupations that are pushed from private to public sector (or any huge employer -- but what private organization employs as many as government?), the more people who are unwilling to speak out against harmful government policies.

Read here to feel the Joy of Voting

The economic analysis of voting primarily takes voting as instrumental: like a bank account, a vote is supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end. A few of us have argued against this: e.g., Geoffrey Brennan, Bryan Caplan, and recently Becker and Mulligan, but that is a small minority.

Another way to appreciate the same point is to see what actual Catalan voters had to say last weekend:

The polling station workers thought that if they had computers with older technology they may be able to connect to a wifi system [the Spanish government was blocking polling stations' internet access] ... we all started clapping – it had worked! They were connected. One man inside excitedly ran to inform the others... “I’m going to be the first to vote!” he yelled excitedly, to laughter. The two elderly women and a handful of others inside took up their ballot papers and voted.

Then the gates opened and the first round of people walked through. Everyone was cheering and applauding jubilantly ...the faces of those who came through were still calm and resolute but some became tearful after they voted. It was a really moving moment, and it’s hard to accurately put it in words. The best way I can describe it to say there was an overwhelming sense of dignity about both the moment and the people.

You can read the full account here.

That voting is to many people not merely a means to an end is better understood by Catalan separatists than the Spanish government.

The media has been in the bag for Clinton, Obama, and Lincoln too

Even just in my own areas of expertise -- labor markets and health care -- it is easy to see how reporters and editors of "the news" have been promoting Democratic-party policies.  It's not just convenient ignorance about how incentives work.  Many times they know very well but are silent about it for fear of blemishing the narrative, even while proclaiming to their readers that they tell the whole story.

But this is nothing new.  As Harold Holzer found,

Lincoln alternately pampered, battled, and manipulated the three most powerful publishers of the day: Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, and Henry Raymond of the New York Times.

Lincoln authorized the most widespread censorship in the nation’s history, closing down papers that were “disloyal” and even jailing or exiling editors who opposed enlistment or sympathized with secession. The telegraph, the new invention that made instant reporting possible, was moved to the office of Secretary of War Stanton to deny it to unfriendly newsmen.

As long as the government controls significant resources, the consumers of media will want to know what the government is doing, and the government will sell access to that information to "newsmen" in exchange for favorable coverage.

It isn't merely about changing a specific journalist's mind.  It is also about helping those who are already inclined favorable to earn more profits than those inclined otherwise.  Media market entry and exit takes care of the rest.

Did Trump Trap the Times?

1. The New York Times published a story Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private, which
• mentions "Trump" over 100 times
• cites a number of examples over five decades (including high school) where Donald Trump or his father appears to be "crossing the line"
• reports that the Trump Organization was a construction-industry leader when it came to promoting women into the upper ranks of management, and that Donald Trump was taking such actions over the objections of his father.
2. Within one day, the woman whose anecdotes lead the New York Times piece comes out to "rebut the NY Times story on history with women."
3. This single event appears to have accomplished multiple goals for the Trump campaign
• free advertising for Trump
• discredit the New York Times, at least when it comes to accusations against Trump, and perhaps even making it look like the daily screed for the Democratic Party
• put future accusers (if any) on the defensive
• give the campaign an authority to (selectively) cite on how Mr. Trump had taken personal risks in order to be a pioneer at promoting women in business.

Has the Trump campaign gotten lucky yet again? Or was this planned? Can we at least assume that the New York Times is not planning together with the Trump campaign? Either way, there is a real concern that the New York Times will prove incapable of serving as any kind of watchdog during a Trump Administration.

Update: Professor Paglia says "Can there be any finer demonstration of the insularity and mediocrity of today’s Manhattan prestige media? ...Blame for this fiasco falls squarely upon the New York Times editors...."

She is probably correct, but might entertain the idea that Mr. Trump is far more clever than the press.

UPenn takes the high road

Upenn briefly removed its suddenly-viral video of the 2013 health conference plenary session. Thanks for putting it back!

Bad Economics for a Good Cause

Update: I had the benefit of watching the entire video (51:19 from a plenary session on "The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA and How Economics Can Inform Inevitable Mid-Course Corrections"), but UPenn decided to remove it so all you can see is this clip from the 20:30 mark in the full video (another update: UPenn put the full video back -- see above): 

Omitted highlights include:

• Prof. Pauly calls himself "The father of the individual mandate (although not this mandate)"
• Prof. Pauly prefers the "Rambo" alternative the ACA's individual mandate.  Rambo would put all of the uninsured on a bronze plan without their permission and send them a tax bill for bronze premiums. 
• Prof. Gruber claims that the Cadillac tax is excessive (effectively over 100 percent due to corporate income tax interactions with the Cadillac tax)
• Prof. Gruber claims that the individual mandate penalty should be much larger.
• Both Professors discuss the Oregon study and it's failure to show a statistically significant effect of health insurance on health.  Among other things, Prof. Gruber said that the study results widened his priors without changing their mean.
• Prof. Gruber wants to expand the subsidies: expand premium subsidies for everybody and cost-sharing subsidies for people under 300% FPL.  He is optimistic that the opportunity for such expansions will come as (if?) healthcare gets more expensive.
• Prof. Gruber would not oppose eliminating the employer mandate.  The revenue loss would be nontrivial (but not huge), he says, but the mandate is primarily affecting the composition of insurance (employer vs Obamacare) and who really cares about that. [remark: I agree that the employer mandate affects the composition of insurance, which is why the deficit effects of the employer mandate are huge]
• Neither professor acknowledges the law's work disincentives or its large productivity costs.
• Both professors are clear that they consider the pre-ACA status quo as the relevant alternative for evaluating the law.  That's good news for me: my book does the same thing.  

Good bye to one of my favorites

Gordon Tullock died yesterday.  He did a lot of innovative work and was highly deserving of a Nobel prize.  I especially liked this book.

High-tech fuel for voter fantasies

Part of the fun of voting is imagining that the vote makes a difference. To assist in this effort, the Cook County Clerk now emails absentee voters that their ballot has been received. Wisely, the Clerk does not include a tally of how many elections are uncontested.

Subject: Your ballot has been received

From: mail.voting@cookcountyil.gov

Date: Fri, Oct 31, 2014 12:16 pm

CASEY BRYANT MULLIGAN,

We have received your voted ballot for the November 4, 2014 Gubernatorial General Election. However, no ballots are counted until election day when all other ballot types are tallied.

Thank you for participating in our democracy. If you wish to vote by mail in a future election, please apply at cookcountyclerk.com/votebymail

Sincerely,

Cook County Clerk’s Office

Mail Ballot Team

Cook County ballot is full of uncontested elections

Even the Cook County Board President is running unopposed. Not exactly free entry

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/syllabi/Econ811JournalArticles/BeckerJLE.pdf

How to put a crying baby to sleep

Read the baby one of my blog posts!

A time for more nations from Sharif on Vimeo.

A Time for More Nations

Copyright, The New York Times Company


Catalonia, which includes Barcelona, has long been a part of Spain, but its peaceful residents increasingly talk about being an independent country again. In elections over the weekend, where independence was one of the most discussed campaign issues, a majority of offices were won by parties that support more Catalan independence, in one form or another.

An independent Catalonia would reinforce a worldwide trend. The world’s economics and demography are changing, and economic theory predicts that national borders will change with them (see “The Size of Nations,” by Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore or “A Theory of the Size and Shape of Nations,” by David Friedman in The Journal of Political Economy).

The number of countries has grown since World War II, especially since 1990. The Soviet Union broke into multiple nations. Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia; Yugoslavia dissolved.

In most cases, many citizens of the parts wanted independence from the larger whole. The large countries were often divided by language or ethnicity and were often held together by nondemocratic leadership. The new independent countries emerged as democracy took hold, or shortly after.

In a few instances, countries combined. East Germany and West Germany unified. North and South Vietnam became one when North Vietnam won the Vietnam War. North Yemen and South Yemen were unified. As their names suggest, they have some common language, culture and history, more so than many former Soviet republics did.

Catalonia has its own language, Catalan, and a long history. Under Franco, Spain suppressed many Catalan institutions. And labor was mobile in Spain during the Franco regime, with many Spanish-speakers moving to Catalonia, Spain’s most prosperous region. The prevalence of Spanish in Catalonia, as well as the heavy hand of Franco, may have undercut an independence movement. But Franco’s death in 1975 and the emergence of democracy in Spain did not foster an independent Catalonia.

New generations have been learning Catalan, however, and that may be tipping the balance toward independence.

Catalonia objects to the amount of taxes it pays Spain’s central government, compared with the benefits it receives. One potential step would be to address that situation without full independence, by having Spain’s central government “charge” Catalonia less for being part of Spain by providing tax breaks or more public services.

As governments and redistribution grow, richer regions find taxes to be increasingly burdensome. With the cold war over, ethnically unique regions no longer perceive the same national security benefits of being part of a larger nation.

Catalonia’s situation is worth watching, as it may hold lessons for Libya, Iraq and even the United States, where regions sometimes diverge in terms of culture, language and preferences for governing. A small nation can be established peacefully and may prove to have long-term benefits.

My Neighbors Know

In my precinct, 79 percent of registered voters voted (I was one of the voters).  Of the voters in that precinct, only 31 percent voted for Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr (I was not one of those). Nevertheless, thanks to the many other precincts, the Congressman got 70 percent of the total votes in his Congressional District shortly before heading for prison.

In case you were wondering, that same precinct cast 59 percent of its votes for Obama-Biden.

 

Flashback: Don't Read This Until Nov 7

from last week:

If your candidate lost yesterday, I'm sorry. If you lament because you assumed that your candidate would have implemented superior public policies, then you can feel better already because your sorrow is based on a false assumption.

Democrats and Republicans clearly have different rhetoric. But rhetoric is not policy. Republicans talk a great game when it comes to cutting government spending, but President Clinton's administration had one of the lowest ratios of government spending to GDP. President Bush added immensely to Medicare spending with the Prescription Drug Act. Democrats talk a great game about helping the poor, but they pushed through a bill to tax America in order to bail out Wall Street. FDR started Social Security, but Nixon did the most to increase its spending. Democrats talk about limiting the power of the state when in comes to the death penalty, but a Republican Governor (Ryan in IL) put a moratorium on the death penalty.

Do you remember when Democrats were devasted because Roe-v-Wade would be overturned once President Reagan made his Supreme Court appointments? Well, those appointments happened and Roe-v-Wade still stands. I could go on and on with examples.

Economic theory suggests that political party might not affect policy, but instead merely reflect public policy preferences of the citizens. With some exceptions (see below), political parties compete with each other. Obama was one of the most liberal U.S. Senators because he faced little contest in Illinois, but became quite middle-of-the-road when it came to the Presidential race. Politicians are politicians first and (at best) ideologues second. A public opinion shift may give one party or another a small advantage and thus create a correlation between public policy and party-in-power, but this does not mean that political party itself has a significant impact on policy. Indeed, it would be inefficient if it did.

A number of economic studies have failed to find a correlation between party-in-power and public policy. Others have found a correlation (Professors Besley and Case have a nice survey in the JEL), but even there the implied impact is quite small. For example, Besley and Case look at state governments (where spending is about 1000 1982-dollars per capita per year) and find that governor's party is not correlated with spending and that a 10 percentage point increase in the Democratic party's share of the state legislature is associated with additional state government spending in the amount of $10 per capita per year. $10 per capita per year could be less than the cost of voting itself! Furthermore, effects at the state level may be larger than they would be at the national level because state-legislature elections are often uncontested and the whole economic logic cited above presumes competition.

Professors Snowberg, Wolfers, and Zitzewitz tried to look at situations in which party-in-power was significantly different even when citizen preferences were not. They found some effects, but they were also quite small. Eg., a Bush administration (rather than Kerry or Gore) was expected to increase stock prices by 2-3%. That is pretty trivial, given that the stock market fluctuated that much in the 20 minutes it took me to type this entry (back in October 2008).

Do Not Read This Until Nov 7

If your candidate lost yesterday, I'm sorry. If you lament because you assumed that your candidate would have implemented superior public policies, then you can feel better already because your sorrow is based on a false assumption.

Democrats and Republicans clearly have different rhetoric. But rhetoric is not policy. Republicans talk a great game when it comes to cutting government spending, but President Clinton's administration had one of the lowest ratios of government spending to GDP. President Bush added immensely to Medicare spending with the Prescription Drug Act. Democrats talk a great game about helping the poor, but they pushed through a bill to tax America in order to bail out Wall Street. FDR started Social Security, but Nixon did the most to increase its spending. Democrats talk about limiting the power of the state when in comes to the death penalty, but a Republican Governor (Ryan in IL) put a moratorium on the death penalty.

Do you remember when Democrats were devasted because Roe-v-Wade would be overturned once President Reagan made his Supreme Court appointments? Well, those appointments happened and Roe-v-Wade still stands. I could go on and on with examples.

Economic theory suggests that political party might not affect policy, but instead merely reflect public policy preferences of the citizens. With some exceptions (see below), political parties compete with each other. Obama was one of the most liberal U.S. Senators because he faced little contest in Illinois, but became quite middle-of-the-road when it came to the Presidential race. Politicians are politicians first and (at best) ideologues second. A public opinion shift may give one party or another a small advantage and thus create a correlation between public policy and party-in-power, but this does not mean that political party itself has a significant impact on policy. Indeed, it would be inefficient if it did.

A number of economic studies have failed to find a correlation between party-in-power and public policy. Others have found a correlation (Professors Besley and Case have a nice survey in the JEL), but even there the implied impact is quite small. For example, Besley and Case look at state governments (where spending is about 1000 1982-dollars per capita per year) and find that governor's party is not correlated with spending and that a 10 percentage point increase in the Democratic party's share of the state legislature is associated with additional state government spending in the amount of $10 per capita per year. $10 per capita per year could be less than the cost of voting itself! Furthermore, effects at the state level may be larger than they would be at the national level because state-legislature elections are often uncontested and the whole economic logic cited above presumes competition.

Professors Snowberg, Wolfers, and Zitzewitz tried to look at situations in which party-in-power was significantly different even when citizen preferences were not. They found some effects, but they were also quite small. Eg., a Bush administration (rather than Kerry or Gore) was expected to increase stock prices by 2-3%. That is pretty trivial, given that the stock market fluctuated that much in the 20 minutes it took me to type this entry (back in October 2008).

Leaks and Press Freedoms

Copyright, The New York Times Company

Government leaks and a free press are not always compatible.

Democracy is said to depend on freedom of the press and other news media, especially the freedom to publish information and opinions without approval or censure from government officials. Empirically, there is a strong correlation between press freedoms and the fairness of elections, absence of autocratic leaders and other hallmarks of democracy.

Full and complete freedoms of the press and other news media are not an automatic consequence of economic development, education and other factors thought to foster democracies. For example, a 2001 World Bank study of 97 countries found that governments commonly owned their nation’s television stations.

Even in Western Europe, countries otherwise known for their political freedoms, government television stations made up more than half of the television market.

In the United States, most newspapers, television stations and cable television channels are owned and operated by private or publicly owned companies, and the government has little to say about what is published in or broadcast over them, with the exception of obscene, indecent or profane programming transmitted by conventional broadcasting systems, which are subject to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.

One suspects that Americans and news organizations would loudly object if the government offered cash subsidies to newspapers or television stations as a reward for printing or broadcasting favorable coverage of elected officials or levied special taxes on news organizations as a punishment for unfavorable coverage.

Such practices would not explicitly prohibit unfavorable coverage but would make it more difficult for outlets that displeased the government to survive in a competitive marketplace for readers and viewers.

But candidates and officials can and do reward specific news organizations with personal appearances and interviews that the news organizations and their owners find valuable — or withhold interviews from those they find hostile, as Barack Obama did with Fox News for much of his first presidential campaign.

The private sector does not have the moral high ground, and there are times that private media outlets are unfair to government officials. Nevertheless, the American approach has been to prohibit the government from levying cash penalties on or offering cash rewards to media outlets on the basis of the fairness of their coverage.

Sometimes, however, government officials possess information that would be of interest to the public, and thereby valuable for news organizations. In principle, officials could reward favorable coverage by distributing or “leaking” more information to sympathetic outlets than to unfriendly ones.

We don’t yet have a data set or systematic study of the transactional characteristics of leaks — such as which outlets receive the most leaks and whether those outlets are more favorable in their coverage to the agencies doing the leaking. But government leaks can potentially be a noncash currency that can be traded between the government and news organizations.

Democracy is not jeopardized by a few leaks, and news media deal in a whole array of sports, business and other information to which government officials have no special access. But punishing government leakers is not inconsistent with democratic values. By preventing leaks from being used by the government as a currency for rewarding or penalizing media outlets, it could help keep the press truly independent.

Career Concerns in Chicago

Copyright, The New York Times Company

Chicago has been in the news twice recently, once for being ranked as the most corrupt American city and this week for losing its opportunity to hold the Group of 8 economic summit meeting in May. The economics of the two events are related.

A study at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs found that Chicago city officials, especially aldermen, were convicted by the federal government for corrupt activities while in office more often than officials in other cities.

It’s been decades since a Chicago mayor has been convicted of a crime while in office. But something has seemed different in that office too, because its holder had been named Richard Daley for 42 of the 56 years from 1955 to 2011 (first Richard J. Daley, then his son Richard M. Daley). It’s also been at least decades since a Chicago mayor sought a higher office.

A promotion tournament is one way that labor economists have suggested that people can be provided incentives to behave well in their jobs, be they in the private or public sector. The idea is that people have an extra reason to do their job well when they expect to be closely evaluated on the occasion of a promotion decision.

Promotions are sometimes a factor in political careers, too. Aldermen sometimes become mayors and mayors governors. Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were governors before being elected president. Officials are sometimes criticized for looking toward higher offices, but those aspirations might give them an extra reason to stay away from corruption, lest credible accusations of corruption mar their campaigns.

Many Chicago mayors have not been expected to pursue higher office. Richard J. Daley and Harold Washington died in office. Richard M. Daley retired, and Chicagoans do not expect him to run for governor, senator or president.

The current mayor, Rahm Emanuel, could be different. He is a prominent figure in the national Democratic Party. If, hypothetically, he were building a résumé for governor or another office, that could be good for Chicago. The better Chicago performs while he is mayor, the better his résumé will look.

Indeed, Mayor Emanuel has already involved himself in statewide, national and international interests. He was eager to play host to the G-8; although that was moved to Camp David, Chicago will be the site of a NATO meeting this year.

Mayors often concern themselves with the city’s public school system through high school. Mayor Emanuel has looked a bit presidential in tackling higher education, too.

Thus, while Chicagoans have wondered why their city should endure the hassle of G-8 and NATO meetings, perhaps they should appreciate having a mayor who might have “career concerns.”

Was Qaddafi Overpaid?

Copyright, The New York Times Company

By most measures, the former dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi looks to have been overpaid, even as dictators go.

Colonel Qaddafi’s wealth had recently been estimated in the tens of billions. But it now looks as though he could have been worth more than $200 billion.

Obviously, $200 billion, or even $10 billion, is a lot for wealth for one person. But $200 billion is but a fraction of Libya’s national wealth. Its proven oil reserves alone total 46 billion barrels. If those barrels were valued at $100 each, the oil reserves alone would be $4.6 trillion, or 23 times Colonel Qaddafi’s wealth.

In my research on dictators and their public finances, I estimate that, on average, dictators were taking about 3 percent of their nations’ incomes in the form of excessive taxation. Judging from Colonel Qaddafi’s share of Libya’s national wealth, that’s about what he was taking.

Dictators typically spend a lot on the military in order to protect themselves from people who might want to take their lucrative jobs, which itself is a sure sign that a dictator is overpaid. Led by Colonel Qaddafi, Libya’s government spent more of the nation’s income on the military than the average dictatorship does. Libya also spent less of its national income on social security than the typical dictatorship does, although perhaps a bit more than an economically and demographically similar democratic country would.

Colonel Qaddafi’s regime was known to torture and execute its political enemies. So it’s clear that the citizens of Libya were sacrificing too much for their leaders.

What’s less clear is whether the next leaders of Libya will take less or offer better services for the citizens of Libya. Egypt’s experience since Hosni Mubarak shows that the overthrow of a longtime dictator does not by itself bring freedom or democracy. Libya has much more in oil riches than Egypt, and political opponents in Libya are likely to find that wealth worth a violent fight.

Let’s hope that a long, bloody Libyan civil war does not make Colonel Qaddafi’s “fees” for his longtime leadership look cheap.

Same Analysis for Iraq

Today I wrote that Allied efforts in Libya are unlikely to bring democracy.

Iraq's situation is not much different. Tsui and I wrote in 2006:

Regime challengers are twice encouraged in Iraq – once by the expected future value of leadership and a second time by political freedoms. Perhaps attempts to grab power in Iraq would have been less intense if the country’s oil assets had not gained so much value since 2003, or entry into the Iraqi political process were as difficult as in neighboring nondemocratic countries.

Don't Hope for Change in Libya

Copyright, The New York Times Company

Even as the United States and its allies press their military campaign against forces loyal to the longtime dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, economic indicators suggest that helping Libyan rebels will neither reduce oppression nor result in democracy for Libya.

Libya’s oil reserves are among the largest and most valuable in the world, and that alone is a big obstacle to democracy. Leaders of oil-rich countries almost always enjoy rich economic rewards, and there’s an endless supply of factions that would, no doubt, like to have those rewards for themselves.

So even if rebel forces succeed under the banner of an essentially democratic revolution in overthrowing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and regardless of whether Libya’s next leader arises from a democracy movement, at some point he is likely to consider political oppression as a survival strategy that helps hold back all his competitors.

For this and other reasons, research in economics and political science has found that democracy’s advances are few in oil-rich countries. Prof. Robert Barro of Harvard found that countries with relatively large net oil exports were less likely to have a democratic national government. Prof. Michael Ross of the University of California, Los Angeles, also found that effect.

Citizens of rich countries like democracy and like to use a lot of energy, so they generally import a lot of oil. The Barro and Ross results are sometimes questioned on the basis that oil exports are a symptom rather than a cause of a country’s political and economic situation.

This is one reason that Prof. Kevin Tsui of Clemson (my former student at the University of Chicago) examined oil reserves rather than net oil exports in a study published in The Economic Journal.

He found that democratization –- the process of moving to fair elections, allowing free speech, free political expression and so on -– was much less likely to occur after a country discovered significant oil reserves, regardless of how much oil the country chose to export.

Libya has other characteristics that make democracy unlikely. It is more Muslim that the average country in the world and more ethnically heterogeneous, and Professor Tsui has found both of these conditions to be associated with less democracy.

If Libya’s rebels are successful, no amount of Allied help will change the country’s location or its basic economics. Nor would it change Libya’s demographics, though perhaps a post-Qaddafi Libya would consist of multiple countries, each more homogeneous than the unified Libya was.

The Allied intervention will not bring Libya peace in the short term, and will not bring democracy in the long term as long as Libya has valuable oil in the ground.