Steve Kim
Working Papers
Contemporary research on East Asia's economic transformation in the postwar era has demonstrated the critical role of the state in driving economic development. Yet it has failed to articulate why such developmental states emerged in East Asia and what political conditions enable or compel a state to adopt developmental policies. In this paper, I develop a model of developmental states as political actors and establish a novel causal link from regime type to policy choice to economic growth. A highly democratic regime produces an idle state, politically constrained from distortionary yet pro-growth interventions in the economy. An overly autocratic regime produces a predatory state, politically compelled toward interventions that are maximally extractive and stymie growth. An intermediate regime that is moderately democratic or autocratic enables growth-enhancing interventions while curbing purely extractive interventions.
The existence of a state capable of public goods provision cannot be taken for granted. For many low and middle-income economies today, such capacity is absent or in short supply. While some argue that narrow political representation is optimal for building state capacity, which subsequently enables economic growth, some point to a broad distribution of political power as key to long run state development. This paper develops a framework that integrates the two arguments and finds that the optimal breadth of political representation for state capacity growth widens at later stages of state capacity growth.
Work in Progress
Welfare Benefits of Patrimonial Politics
Patrimonialism is a form of governance in which public office is used by a patron to distribute benefits to their clients. Conventional wisdom states that patrimonial practices are at the root of ``underdevelopment" across the Global South. States in South India such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu show, however, patrimonial politics can facilitate public goods provision and improve social welfare. In this paper, I develop a model of electoral competition and public goods provision and examine the conditions under which patrimonial practices produce welfare gains. When government revenue is low and patrimonial expectations are high (i.e. patrons in public office are expected to deliver substantial benefits to their clients), public goods provision collapses. When government revenue is sufficient to provide a baseline of public goods and can withstand patrimonial pressure, the political legitimacy of patrimonial practices enables the selective provision of public goods that would otherwise be entirely absent.
Markets, Morals, and Democracy
On free markets and democractic institutions, some scholars argue a mutual reinforcement while others posit a fundamental incompatibility. I build a model of political and economic entreneurship and argue that the compatibility in part hinges on the salience of moral norms relative to market forces in driving the economy. When moral norms dominate, democratic accountability subverts free markets. When market forces dominate, free markets erode democracy. When neither the moral economy nor the market economy subsumes the other, free markets and democracy are mutually supportive. The salience of moral norms relative to market forces is critical because it influences the entry and opportunity costs of political and economic entrepreneurship.