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Can Democracy Educate a Society?

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Author Info
Hans Gersbach () (University of Heidelberg, CEPR and IZA Bonn)
Lars Siemers (University of Heidelberg)

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Abstract

We examine whether democratic societies can escape poverty traps. Unrestricted agenda setting with simple majority rules fail to educate a society, because education-enhancing redistribution will not occur. We show that a combination of suitable constitutional rules overcomes this impossibility result: rotating agenda setting and agenda repetition in combination with flexible majority rules or with a tax protection rule.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1693.

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Length: 41 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2005
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1693

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Related research
Keywords: constitutional design; claims on deductions; flexible majority rules; agenda repetition; poverty traps; child labor;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
O40 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Hans Gersbach & Felix Mühe, 2008. "Vote-Buying and Growth," Economics working paper series 08/94, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-23.

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