It has been suggested that ``horizontal accountability," i.e., a system of governance where auditing functions lie outside the executive branch, can ensure credible disclosure of information. This paper examines a model of intertemporal information provision in government that suggests a cautious approach to that view. Government consists of a succession of regimes, each ruling for one period before relinquishing power to a successor. Without external auditing, credible communication cannot be sustained. Hence, expenditure policies are suboptimal. Even with external auditing, credible communication requires ideological conflicts between the auditor and the regime. Moreover, because information transmission stops when the auditor's and the regime's biases coincide, effective deterrents even in the ``good" periods (when the auditor's and the regime's biases differ) are difficult to construct. As a result, in standard constructions of equilibrium, efficient policy choices are shown to be unsustainable
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Paper provided by University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy in its series Wallis Working Papers with number
WP34.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
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Dixit, A. & Grossmann, G.M. & Gul, F., 1998.
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V.V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1989.
"Sustainable plans,"
Staff Report
122, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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