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Dissertation Information for HeeMin Kim

NAME:
- HeeMin Kim

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Political Science

SCHOOL:
- Washington University in St. Louis (USA) (1990)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: Social group relations, policy stability, and economic growth in democratic capitalism

Abstract: In this dissertation, I look into some of the important questions in political economy. They include: Is economic recovery/growth through the cooperation between capital and labor possible without third party enforcement?; What are the effects of strong labor power on obtaining cooperation and thus economic recovery?; and under what conditions is this capital-labor cooperation more likely (if it is possible indeed)?

From the formal analysis based on dynamic optimization, I conclude the following: both workers and capitalists can cooperate voluntarily without explicit communication or bargaining arrangements under certain political, economic and social conditions; if the state's economic policy can lead to a low level of future uncertainty for the workers, then strong labor can initiate cooperative actions and thus economic recovery without disrupting the system of democratic capitalism.

The decision of capital and labor on whether to cooperate or not depends heavily on the degree of uncertainty they face about the future. Political stability, among other things, is known to affect the degree of future uncertainty. Differentiating policy stability from government stability, I claim that policy stability helps to reduce the future uncertainty, and thus induces mutual cooperation. Then the conditions of policy stability need to be investigated. From the formal analysis based on coalition theory, I conclude the following. When the state is weak and when a society is divided by more than one politically significant cleavage, it is not likely to find a set of policies that can be implemented in a stable fashion. When there is such a set of policies, it is always the one most preferred by the strongest group in that society. As the strength of the state grows, it becomes somewhat easier to find a set of policies that can be stably implemented and it doesn't have to be the one most preferred by the strongest group. Still it is more likely to be the one most favored by a certain social group.

The results above show that economic recovery is likely to be initiated by (stability-oriented) state's implementation of the policies most preferred by one particular social group, which helps to reduce future uncertainty it faces and induces its cooperative actions. This, in turn, can induce the cooperation of other worker and/or capitalist groups and resulting economic recovery/growth.

MPACT Scores for HeeMin Kim

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-09-25 23:42:07

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