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Abstract

We study a legislature where decisions are made by playing an agenda-setting game. Legislators are concerned about their electoral prospects but they are also genuinely concerned for the legislature to make the correct decision. We show that when ideological polarization is positive but not too large (and the status quo is extremely inefficient), institutions in which the executive has either no constraints (autocracy) or many constraints (unanimity) are preferable to democracies that operate under an intermediate number of constraints (simple majority rule). When instead ideological polarization is large (and the status quo is only moderately inefficient), simple majority turns out to be preferable.

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File URL: http://basepub.dauphine.fr/xmlui/bitstream/123456789/7723/1/IDEOLOGYSUM.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Université Paris-Dauphine in its series Open Access publications from Université Paris-Dauphine with number urn:hdl:123456789/7723.

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Date of creation: 2013
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published in Economic Theory (2013) v.52, p.885-913
Handle: RePEc:ner:dauphi:urn:hdl:123456789/7723

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Related research

Keywords: Majority rule; Position-taking preferences; Ideological polarization; Strategic interactions; Agenda-setting game;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

• D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
• D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, and Operations

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

• NEP-ALL-2011-12-13 (All new papers)
• NEP-CDM-2011-12-13 (Collective Decision-Making)
• NEP-GTH-2011-12-13 (Game Theory)
• NEP-POL-2011-12-13 (Positive Political Economics)

References

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1. Gilat Levy, 2007. "Decision Making in Committees: Transparency, Reputation, and Voting Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 150-168, March.
   
   • Levy, Gilat, 2007. "Decision making in committees: transparency, reputation, and voting rules," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
2. Aghion, P. & Bolton, P., 2003. "Incomplete social contracts," Open Access publications from University College London http://discovery.ucl.ac.u, University College London.
   
   • Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton, 2003. "Incomplete Social Contracts," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 38-67, 03.
   • Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 2003. "Incomplete Social Contracts," Scholarly Articles 4554123, Harvard University Department of Economics.
3. Enrico Spolaore, 2004. "Adjustments in Different Government Systems," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 117-146, 07.
4. Xavier Vives, 2001. "Oligopoly Pricing: Old Ideas and New Tools," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026272040x.
5. B�rd Harstad, 2005. "Majority Rules and Incentives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1535-1568, November.

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