Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S146810991400036X How to cite this article: YASUSHI ASAKO, TAKESHI IIDA, TETSUYA MATSUBAYASHI and MICHIKO UEDA (2015). AbstractDynastic politicians, defined as those whose family members have also served in the same position in the past, occupy a sizable portion of offices in many parts of the world. We develop a model of how dynastic politicians with inherited political advantages affect electoral outcomes and policy choices. Our model predicts that, as compared with non-dynastic legislators, dynastic legislators bring more distributions to the district, enjoy higher electoral success, and harm the economic performance of the districts, despite the larger amount of distributive benefits they bring. We test the implications of the model using data from Japan between 1997 and 2007.

Dynastic politicians, defined as those whose family members have also served in the same position in the past, occupy a sizable portion of offices in many parts of the world. We develop a model of how dynastic politicians with inherited political advantages affect electoral outcomes and policy choices. Our model predicts that, as compared with non-dynastic legislators, dynastic legislators bring more distributions to the district, enjoy higher electoral success, and harm the economic performance of the districts despite the larger amount of distributive benefits they bring. We test the implications of the model using data from Japan between 1997 and 2007.

What are the fiscal consequences of legislative term limits? To answer this question, we first develop a legislative bargaining model that describes negotiations over the allocation of distributive projects among legislators with different levels of seniority. Building on several predictions from the model, we develop two hypotheses for empirical testing. First, the adoption of term limits that results in a larger reduction in the variance of seniority within a legislature increases the amount of government spending. Second, legislatures that adopt stricter term limits increase the amount of government spending, while legislatures that adopt moderate term limits show no change in the amount. We provide evidence for these hypotheses using panel data for 49 US state legislatures between 1980 and 2010.

Attempts by governments to stop bubbles by issuing warnings seem unsuccessful. This article examines the effects of public warnings using a simple model of riding bubbles. We show that public warnings against a bubble can stop it if investors believe that a warning is issued in a definite range of periods commencing around the starting period of the bubble. If a warning involves the possibility of being issued too early, regardless of the starting period of the bubble, it cannot stop the bubble immediately. Bubble duration can be shortened by a premature public warning, but lengthened if it is late.(JEL D82, E58, G18)

Attempts by governments to stop bubbles by issuing warnings seem unsuccessful. This paper examines the effects of public warnings using a simple model of riding bubbles. We show that public warnings against a bubble can stop it if investors believe that a warning is issued in a definite range of periods commencing around the starting period of the bubble. If a warning involves the possibility of being issued too early, regardless of the starting period of the bubble, it cannot stop the bubble immediately. Bubble duration can be shortened by a premature public warning, but lengthened if it is late. Our model suggests that governments need to lower the probability of spurious warnings.