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The Delegation Perspective on Representative Democracy

Author

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  • Hain, Roland
  • Mitra, Manipushpak

Abstract

Why do political constituencies delegate decision power to representative assemblies? And how is the size of such assemblies determined? We analyze these questions of constitutional design in a model with voters learning their preferred alternative only after engaging in costly information gathering. We show that there is an optimal assembly size that would be chosen at a constitutional stage. This implies a relationship between assembly and constituency size. We then compared this relationship to actual data. Fitting a single parameter to the data, we show that our model can explain the actual relationship between assembly and constituency size quite well.

Suggested Citation

  • Hain, Roland & Mitra, Manipushpak, 2002. "The Delegation Perspective on Representative Democracy," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 17/2002, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bonedp:172002
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Constitutional Design; Representative Democracy; Parliament Size; Information Costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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