Policy reforms and the amount of checks & balances

Arbeitspapier

We examine how democracies choose their amount of checks and balances (C&B). For this purpose, we consider a simple model of political competition with costly policy reforms. The cost of a marginal reform is determined endogenously at the constitutional phase-i.e. before policies are chosen-through the choice of (the amount of) C&B. We characterize the set of stable C&B for different constitutional rules which vary depending on (i) who has the power to propose changes to C&B and (ii) on the qualified majority used for approving such changes. Our main results show that stable C&B always exist, are never zero, lead to gridlock, and are higher if the proposal-maker is the party in government. We also find that higher majority requirements for constitutional changes and more polarized societies are conducive to larger sets of stable C&B.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Economics Working Paper Series ; No. 22/373

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Noncooperative Games ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
• Thema: elections ; democracy ; political polarization ; reform costs ; constitutions ; checks and balances

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Gersbach, Hans ; Tejada, Oriol ; Wagner, Julia
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research
• (wo): Zurich
• (wann): 2022

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000563406
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/263139
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ