IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/stanec/97042.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Federalism as a Commitment to Preserving Market Incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Yingyi Qian
  • Barry R. Weingast

Abstract

Fall, 1997 Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 11, Number 4, pp.83-92, Fall 1997 We advance a new perspective in the study of federalism. Our approach views federalism as a governance solution of the state to credibly preserving market incentives. Market incentives are preserved if the state is credibly prevented from compromising on future economic success and from bailing out future failures. The salient features of federalism — decentralization of information and authority and inter-jurisdiction competition — help provide credible commitment for these purposes. In addition, we discuss factors relevant for sustaining federalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Yingyi Qian & Barry R. Weingast, 1997. "Federalism as a Commitment to Preserving Market Incentives," Working Papers 97042, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:stanec:97042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp97042.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    2. Frye, Timothy & Shleifer, Andrei, 1997. "The Invisible Hand and the Grabbing Hand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 354-358, May.
    3. Che, Jiahua & Qian, Yingyi, 1998. "Institutional Environment, Community Government, and Corporate Governance: Understanding China's Township-Village Enterprises," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-23, April.
    4. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    5. Wildasin, David E., 1997. "Externalities and bailouts : hard and soft budget constraints in intergovernmental fiscal relations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1843, The World Bank.
    6. Qian, Yingyi & Roland, Gerard, 1998. "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1143-1162, December.
    7. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1987. "Bargaining and Influence Costs and the Organization of Economic Activity," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt32s7d4jv, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    8. M. Dewatripont & E. Maskin, 1995. "Credit and Efficiency in Centralized and Decentralized Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(4), pages 541-555.
    9. Epple, Dennis & Zelenitz, Allan, 1981. "The Implications of Competition among Jurisdictions: Does Tiebout Need Politics?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1197-1217, December.
    10. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    11. Yingyi Qian & Barry R. Weingast, 1996. "China's transition to markets: market-preserving federalism, chinese style," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 149-185.
    12. Courant, Paul N. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1981. "On the welfare effects of tax limitation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 289-316, December.
    13. Robert H. Bates & Avner Greif & Margaret Levi & Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, 1998. "Analytic Narratives," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 6355.
    14. Schmidt, Klaus M, 1996. "The Costs and Benefits of Privatization: An Incomplete Contracts Approach," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, April.
    15. Shleifer, Andrei, 1997. "Government in transition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 385-410, April.
    16. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    17. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    18. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1988. "The Dynamics of Incentive Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1153-1175, September.
    19. McKinnon, Ronald I., 1995. "Intergovernmental competition in Europe with and without a common currency," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 463-478, October.
    20. repec:hrv:faseco:30725664 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Romano, Roberta, 1985. "Law as a Product: Some Pieces of the Incorporation Puzzle," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 225-283, Fall.
    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. Jin, Hehui & Qian, Yingyi & Weingast, Barry R., 2005. "Regional decentralization and fiscal incentives: Federalism, Chinese style," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1719-1742, September.
    2. Yingyi Qian, 1999. "The Institutional Foundations of China's Market Transition," Working Papers 99011, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    3. Berthold, Norbert & Fricke, Holger, 2007. "China's Booming Economy: Does the Federal Order Foster Growth?," Discussion Paper Series 95, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    4. Robert Inman, 2001. "Transfers and Bailouts: Institutions for Enforcing Local Fiscal Discipline," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 141-160, June.
    5. Albert Park & Minggao Shen, 2002. "A Refinancing Model of Decentralization with Empirical Evidence from China," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 461, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    6. Berthold, Norbert & Fricke, Holger, 2005. "Föderalismus und Wachstum: Eine vernachlässigte Beziehung," Discussion Paper Series 83, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    7. Park, Albert & Shen, Minggao, 2008. "Refinancing and decentralization: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 703-730, June.
    8. Pranab Bardhan, 2016. "State and Development: The Need for a Reappraisal of the Current Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(3), pages 862-892, September.
    9. Nhat Le, 2003. "Contingent and ambiguous property rights: The Case of China's Reform," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec03-4, International and Development Economics.
    10. Bickenbach, Frank, 1999. "Regulierung und Wettbewerb im Bereich der Netzinfrastrukturen: Begründung, Regeln und Institutionen," Kiel Working Papers 910, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Lin, Justin Yifu & Li, Zhiyun, 2008. "Policy burden, privatization and soft budget constraint," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 90-102, March.
    12. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2006. "Information Gathering, Transaction Costs, and the Property Rights Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 422-434, March.
    13. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "The Governance of the New Enterprise," CRSP working papers 487, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    14. J. Kornai & E. Maskin & G. Roland., 2004. "Understanding the Soft Budget Constraint," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 12.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Rachel Griffith & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2010. "Vertical Integration and Technology: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(5), pages 989-1033, September.
    16. Besfamille, Martin & Lockwood, Ben, 2004. "Are Hard Budget Constraints for Sub-National Governments Always Efficient?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 717, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    17. Juan D. Carrillo & Mathias Dewatripont, 2008. "Promises, Promises, …," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1453-1473, August.
    18. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Firm as a Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory of the Origins and Growth of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(3), pages 805-851.
    19. Sergei Guriev & Evgeny Yakovlev & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2007. "Inter-Regional Trade and Lobbying," Working Papers w0100, New Economic School (NES).
    20. Jiahua Che, 2000. "From the Grabbing Hand to the Helping Hand," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 58, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    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:wop:stanec:97042. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/destaus.html .

    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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/destaus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.