IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/537.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Resistance to reform: Reconsidering the role of individual-specific uncertainty

Author

Abstract

Individual-specific uncertainty may increase the chances of reform being enacted and sustained. Reform may be more likely to be enacted because a majority of agents might end up losing little from reform and a minority gaining a lot. Under certainty, reform would therefore be rejected, but it may be enacted with uncertainty because those who end up losing believe that they might be among the winners. Reform may be more likely to be sustained because, in a realistic setting, reform will increase the incentives of agents to move into those economic activities that benefit. Agents who respond to these incentives will vote to sustain reform in future elections, even if they would have rejected reform under certainty. These points are made using the trade-model of Fernandez and Rodrik (AER, 1991).

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Ciccone, 1998. "Resistance to reform: Reconsidering the role of individual-specific uncertainty," Economics Working Papers 537, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Feb 2001.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/537.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Policy uncertainty and private investment in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 229-242, October.
    2. Braillard, S. Lael & Verdier, Thierry, 1994. "Lobbying and adjustment in declining industries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 586-595, April.
    3. Stephen Morris & Stephen Coate, 1999. "Policy Persistence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1327-1336, December.
    4. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    5. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln & Prachi Mishra, 2014. "The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 343-379, November.
    2. Warren, Patrick L. & Wilkening, Tom S., 2012. "Regulatory fog: The role of information in regulatory persistence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 840-856.
    3. Dalibor S. Eterovic, 2011. "Institutional Bias towards the Status Quo," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 167(3), pages 489-514, September.
    4. Stephen Morris & Stephen Coate, 1999. "Policy Persistence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1327-1336, December.
    5. Antonio Ciccone, 2004. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 785-795, June.
    6. Anand, Kartik & Gai, Prasanna & König, Philipp Johann, 2020. "Leaping into the dark: A theory of policy gambles," Discussion Papers 07/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. Guy Holburn & Richard Bergh, 2006. "Consumer capture of regulatory institutions: The creation of public utility consumer advocates in the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 45-73, January.
    8. Dalibor Eterovic, 2009. "Policy Reform Under Electoral Uncertainty," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 546, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Anders Gustafsson, 2019. "Busy doing nothing: why politicians implement inefficient policies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 282-299, September.
    10. Berthélemy Michel & Bonev Petyo & Dussaux Damien & Söderberg Magnus, 2019. "Methods for strengthening a weak instrument in the case of a persistent treatment," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, February.
    11. Richard E. Baldwin & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2007. "Entry and Asymmetric Lobbying: Why Governments Pick Losers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 1064-1093, September.
    12. Eckhard Janeba, 2001. "Global Corporations and Local Politics: A Theory of Voter Backlash," NBER Working Papers 8254, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andreas Bernecker & Pierre C. Boyer & Christina Gathmann, 2021. "The Role of Electoral Incentives for Policy Innovation: Evidence from the US Welfare Reform," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 26-57, May.
    14. Corbo, Vittorio & Fischer, Stanley, 1995. "Structural adjustment, stabilization and policy reform: Domestic and international finance," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 44, pages 2845-2924, Elsevier.
    15. Patrick Warren & Tom Wilkening, 2010. "Regulatory Fog: The Informational Origins of Regulatory Persistence," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1113, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Florian Neumeier, 2018. "Do Businessmen Make Good Governors?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2116-2136, October.
    17. Panova, Elena, 2015. "A passion for voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 44-65.
    18. Sumon Majumdar & Sharun W. Mukand, 2004. "Policy Gambles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1207-1222, September.
    19. Janeba, Eckhard, 2004. "Global corporations and local politics: income redistribution vs. FDI subsidies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 367-391, August.
    20. Hofer, Katharina E. & Marti, Christian & Bütler, Monika, 2017. "Ready to reform: How popular initiatives can be successful," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 16-39.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Status-quo bias; bias against reform; individual-specific uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:537. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.