Separation of Powers and Political Accountability

Persson, Torsten; Roland, Gérard; Tabellini, Guido

doi:10.1162/003355300555457

“…For example, if a project is designed, but the incumbent has no incentive to examine it, one of the means open to the electorate is a lengthening of the term the incumbent stays in office. This was discussed in 13 By assuming that the electorate is both homogeneous and able to coordinate on a voting rule we follow the literature, see Ferejohn (1986) and Persson, Roland, and Tabellini (1997). Note, however, that relaxing this assumption would reduce the beneficial effect elections have in their papers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Elections Lead to Informed Public Decisions?

Swank

¹

,

Visser

²

2003

SSRN Journal

4

0

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. cians, yet politicians who are overly interested in re-election shy away from policy examination. Our analysis sheds light on the distance created in mature democracies between the political process and the production of policy relevant information; on the role played by probing into candidates' past; and on the possibility of crowding out desirable political behaviour by increasing the value of holding office. Terms of use: Documents in

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“…We do not replicate their models here for reasons of space and because they have become part of the standard toolkit of most political economists. 13 If "the decisions on taxes is combined with allocative decisions, we return to the equilibrium of the simple legislature" (Persson, Roland andTabellini, 2000: 1143).…”

Section: Political Regimes Separation Of Powers and The Budget Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of checks and balances in this case makes it easier for a majority of politicians to collude and extract higher revenues from the population at large, which leads to larger governments as a result. 2 Persson and Tabellini, henceforth PT (2003) test this implication of their theory for a sample of 85 democratic countries, and they find the impact of the system of government to be large: other things equal, government spending in 1 See in particular Persson, Roland, andTabellini (1997 and. Even though PT are not the only authors who have explored this relationship, we base our analysis on their work because they are the ones who have received the most attention and praise.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Economic Effects of Constitutions: Do Budget Institutions Make Forms of Government More Alike?

Ardanaz

¹

,

Scartascini

²

2013

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. Terms of use: Documents inThe unauthorized commercial use of Bank documents is prohibited and may be punishable under the Bank's policies and/or applicable laws. Copyright ©Inter-American Development Bank. This working paper may be reproduced for any non-commercial purpose. It may also be reproduced in any academic journal indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, with previous consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. According to an influential theoretical argument, presidential systems tend to present smaller governments because the separation between those who decide the size of the fiscal purse and those who allocate it creates incentives for lower public expenditures. In practice, forms of government vary greatly, and budget institutions-the rules according to which budgets are drafted, approved, and implemented-are one (of many) drivers of such variation. This paper argues that under more hierarchical budget rules, presidential and parliamentary systems generate a similar incentive structure for the executive branch in shaping the size of government. This hypothesis is tested on a broad cross-section of countries, presidentialism is found to have a negative impact on government size only when executive discretion in the budget process is low (that is, in a context of separation of powers). However, the negative effect of presidentialism on expenditures vanishes or is even reversed when the executive's discretion over the budget process is higher. Hence, budget institutions that impose restrictions on the legislature's ability to amend budget proposals can make political regimes look more alike in terms of fiscal outcomes. Cataloging-in-Publication JEL classifications: D72, D78, H61

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“…See also Shugart and Carey (1992). 41 See, among others, Cox and McCubbins (2001), Moe and Caldwell (1994), Persson, et al (1997), Persson andTabellini (2002 and, and Tsebelis (1995 and.…”

Section: The Determinants Of Political Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%