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Volatility and Resilience of Democratic Public-Good Provision

Author

Listed:
  • Hans Gersbach
  • Fikri Pitsuwan
  • Giovanni Valvassori Bolgè

Abstract

We examine democratic public-good provision with heterogeneous legislators. Decisions are taken by majority rule and an agenda-setter proposes a level of the public good, taxes, and subsidies. Members are heterogeneous with respect to their benefits from the public good. We find that, depending on the status quo public-good level, the agenda-setter will form a coalition with the agents who most desire, or least desire, the public good, and we may observe ‘strange bedfellow’ coalitions. Moreover, public-good provision is a non-monotonic function of the status quo public-good level. In the dynamic setting, public-good provision fluctuates endogenously, even if the agenda-setter stays the same over time. Moreover, the more polarized the legislature is, the higher is the volatility of public-good provision and the longer it may take for a society to recover from negative shocks to public-good provision. We illustrate these findings for a two-party system with polarized parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans Gersbach & Fikri Pitsuwan & Giovanni Valvassori Bolgè, 2024. "Volatility and Resilience of Democratic Public-Good Provision," CESifo Working Paper Series 11004, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    legislative bargaining; coalition; public goods; polarization; resilience;
    All these keywords.

    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 - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

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