This article presents a formal model of policy decision-making in an institutional framework of separation of powers in which the main actors are pivotal political parties with voting discipline. The basic model previously developed from pivotal politics theory for the analysis of the United States lawmaking is here modified to account for policy outcomes and institutional performances in other presidential regimes, especially in Latin America. Legislators' party indiscipline at voting and multi-partism appear as favorable conditions to reduce the size of the equilibrium set containing collectively inefficient outcomes, while a two-party system with strong party discipline is most prone to produce 'gridlock', that is, stability of socially inefficient policies. The article provides a framework for analysis which can induce significant revisions of empirical data, especially regarding the effects of situations of (newly defined) unified and divided government, different decision rules, the number of parties and their discipline. These implications should be testable and may inspire future analytical and empirical work.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number
817.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
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