Modeling and Evaluation of Political Processes: A New Quantitative Approach

This chapter develops the eCGPE as a theoretical framework and an empirically applicable tool for defining, evaluating and designing efficient participatory and evidence-based policy processes. The eCGPE is a sequential dynamic political economy equilibrium model that incorporates five modules that model legislative decision making, the transformation of policies into socioeconomic outcomes, interest mediation via voting and lobbying, political belief formation and policy learning. In contrast to existing political economy models, which highlight the biased incentives of politicians as a main cause of persisting inefficient policies, the CGPE approach explicitly incorporates the lack of adequate political knowledge as another important source of inefficient policy choices.