Political economy of austerity
My PhD thesis focused on the political economy of fiscal austerity in OECD countries and Canadian provinces. Most research suggests that governments can impose cutbacks without seeing their popularity decrease, and that by implementing austerity, governments can reorient their expenditures towards more productive investments.
I argue that this view is mistaken and show that austerity reduces governments’ popularity and encourages them to prioritize public policies that are profitable in the short term, to the detriment of longer-term investments.
Publications:
Governing for the long-term
Under which conditions do governments implement policies that are beneficial in the long-term? This project builds on a theoretical perspective highlighting the effect of electoral competition, political institutions, and austerity to explain why governments adopt a long-term rather than short-term perspective.
It focuses on several policy fields ranging from education, infrastructure and environmental protection to preventive health care.
Publication
Jacques, Olivier. 2021. “The Electoral Politics of Long-term Investments.”, Party Politics
Working papers
Ammi, Mehdi, Emmanuelle Arpin, Olivier Jacques and Alain Noël. "The partisan and fiscal determinants of public health spending in Canadian provinces."
Jacques, Olivier and Alain Noël. "The Politics of Preventive Care Investments."
Welfare states, inequality and population health
This project revisits classical questions in the comparative welfare state research: does the paradox of redistribution, stating that universalism entails more redistribution and poverty reduction than targeting (Korpi and Palme 1998), still holds in the 21st century. How do we combine the political legitimacy and institutional solidity of a universal welfare state with the redistributive efficiency of targeted programmes?
Furthermore, the project investigates the effect of social policies and income inequality on population health.
Publications
Jacques, Olivier and Alain Noël. 2021. "Targeting Within Universalism." Journal of European Social Policy. 31(1): 15-29.
Working paper
Jacques, Olivier and Alain Noël. “Decommodification and Health: How the Welfare State and the Labor Market Influence Population Health.” R&R at Social Policy and Administration
Public opinion towards fiscal policies
This research agenda concerns the relationship between fiscal policies and public opinion in several different projects.
In collaboration with Chris Abbott, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, Kyle Hanniman and Scott Matthews, I have fielded a survey experiment assessing if the growing tendency of central banks to comment on government fiscal policy affects voters’ policy preferences.
I am studying citizens' willingness to pay taxes in OECD countries, arguing that among left wing individuals, those with higher income and education tend to be more willing to pay taxes than those with lower levels of education and income.
Finally, I am studying Canadians' preferences regarding budget deficits (with Éric Bélanger) and equalization (with Daniel Béland and André Lecours).
Publications
Jacques, Olivier, Daniel Béland and André Lecours. 2021. "Fiscal Federalism, Social Identity and Place-Based Resentment." Forthcoming in Regional Studies.
Working papers
Jacques, Olivier. “Political Coalitions and Willingness to Pay Taxes.” Under review. Working paper available here.
Abbott, Chris, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, Kyle Hanniman, Olivier Jacques and Scott Matthews “Stimulus or Austerity? How Central Banks Can Change Citizen’s Preferences.”
Policy choices in Canadian provinces
I made several contributions to the study of Canadian politics by bringing in comparative political economy perspective to understand policy choices in the country.
I show that Québec’s distinct party system is one of the main reasons why it is the only province with a universal childcare system.
I confirm that political discretion exists in project allocation in Canada: districts represented by a government MP receive more infrastructure funding than opposition districts.
I explain why levels of taxes in Canada are relatively low, but quite progressive from a comparative perspective.
I also studied the determinants of the share of income allocated to the top 1% in Québec.
Publications