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We identify the conditions under which voters can induce political parties to collect information and to select policies which are optimal from the representative voter’s point of view. We show that when parties are office motivated the voting rule should encourage parties to collect...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005016251
A well-known rationale for representative democracy is that direct democracy leads to a free-rider problem as to the collection of information. A problem with this rationale is that it takes for granted that representatives collect information. In this paper we examine whether or not electoral...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005016253
Transparent decision-making processes are widely regarded as a prerequisite for the working of a representative democracy. It facilitates accountability, and citizens may suspect that decisions, if taken behind closed doors, do not promote their interests. Why else the secrecy? We provide a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005144398
Some committees are made up of experts, persons interested in both the (subject) matter at hand and in coming across as able decision-makers. Such committees would like to conceal disagreement from the public. We present a theory that describes the reaction of experts to the requirement to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005144492
We analyze general equilibrium relationships between trade policy and the household distribution of income, decomposing social welfare into real income level and variance components through Gini and Atkinson indexes. We embed these inequality-adjusted social welfare functions in a general...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005144496
In a multiperiod setting, decision-makers can learn about the consequences of their decisions through experimentation. In this paper we examine how in a two-party system polarization and political instability affect learning through experimentation. We distinguish two cases: <OL> <LI>the decision to be...</li></ol>
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005144519
We study electoral competition among politicians who are heterogeneous both in competence and in how much they care about (what they perceive as) the public interest relative to the private rents from being in office. We show that politicians may have stronger incentives to behave...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005144528
A firm may induce voters or elected politicians to support a policy it favors by suggesting that it is more likely to invest in a district whose voters or representatives support the policy. In equilibrium, no one vote may be decisive, and the policy may gain strong support though the majority...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10004964459
Interest groups are introduced in a spatial model of electoral competition between two political parties. We show that, by coordinating voting behavior,these interest groups increase the winning set, which is defined as the set of policy platforms for the challenger that will defeat the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008513247
We present a dynamic model of the interaction between interest groups and policymakers, featuring endogenous interest group formation. We show that complicated dynamic patterns in economic policies may arise once interest group formation is taken into account. <BR><BR>
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005136859