Give and Take: Political Competition, Participation and Public Finance in 20th Century Latin America

Rational choice models predict that political competition and political participation have opposite effects on the size of government. We investigate these theories using data from a panel of 18 Latin American countries during the 20th century. Our research builds evidence for the prediction that reforms enhancing political competition tend to limit the size of government. Furthermore, we find that reforms which remove literacy requirements from franchise laws are associated with government expansion, while changes in women's suffrage laws have no impact on the size of government. Our findings demonstrate the empirical relevance of the distinction between political competition and participation

Policy compromises: corruption and regulation in a dynamic democracy

This paper evaluates the extent of regulation in a democracy with political corruption. Elected politicians can restrict entry of firms in exchange for bribes from entrepreneurs. Full liberalization implies free entry and allocative efficiency and is supported by a majority of voters. Voters reelect politicians based on observed performance. We study Markov-perfect equilibria of the resulting game, and demonstrate that voters agree to tolerate some corruption and inefficient regulation in political equilibrium. Efficient policies can be promoted by productivity growth. Political corruption entails excessive stabilization of aggregate fluctuations.

The cost and benefits of collective bargaining : a survey

Collective bargaining and dispute resolution mechanisms facilitate coordination. Coordination is increasingly seen as an influential determinant of labor market and macroeconomic performance. This paper provides a systematic review of the relevant literature with a specific focus on the role that collective bargaining plays in shaping macroeconomic performance. We focus on comparative studies of labor market institutions in the OECD area that try to disentangle the impact of different institutional approaches to collective bargaining from other determinants of macroeconomic performance.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Management and Relations,Social Protections&Assistance,Labor Standards

Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures

We study the effect of electoral incentives on the allocation of public services across legislative districts. We develop a model in which elections encourage individual legislators to cater to parochial interests and thus aggravate the common pool problem. Using unique data from seven US states, we study how the amount of funding that a legislator channels to his district changes when he faces a term limit. We find that legislators bring less state funds to their district when they cannot run for re-election. Consistent with the Law of 1/N, this tendency is less pronounced in states with many legislative districts.term limits, electoral incentives, distributive politics, the Law of 1/N, US state legislatures

Fiscal Federalism and Electoral Accountability

We study the efficient allocation of spending and taxation authority in a federation in which federal politicians are exposed to electoral uncertainty. We show that centralization may, but need not, result in a loss of electoral accountability. We identify an important asymmetry between positive and negative externalities and show that centralization may not be efficient in economies with positive externalities even when regions are identical and centralization does not entail a loss of accountability. We also show that decentralization can only Pareto dominate centralization in economies with negative externalities.fiscal federalism, local public goods, externalities, performance voting, turnout uncertainty, electoral accountability

Capital Taxation and Electoral Accountability

In a representative democracy, voters can use elections to protect their property by holding politicians accountable for the tax policies they implement while in office. This paper demonstrates that performance voting can - partly or wholly - solve the capital levy problem. We characterise the �best� non-expropriating tax policies that can be sustained in a stationary Markov Perfect Equilibrium; show when this coincides with the second best tax policy; and discuss, in detail, the robustness of the result