IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v4y2007i2p169-183.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economic Analysis of Constitutions: Fatalism Versus Vitalism

Author

Listed:
  • Charles B. Blankart
  • Gerrit B. Koester

Abstract

We review the claim that the field of political economy has witnessed a quantum leap with Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini´s The Economic Effects of Constitutions. We find that the approach of Persson and Tabellini suffers from the neglect of previous research, notably in public choice tradition, a lack of a meaningful point of reference, and the disregard of individual liberty as a guiding principle. Their approach has only limited value for formulating, exploring, and judging institutional reforms, particularly reforms outside narrow bounds around the status quo of the liberal democracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles B. Blankart & Gerrit B. Koester, 2007. "The Economic Analysis of Constitutions: Fatalism Versus Vitalism," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 4(2), pages 169-183, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:4:y:2007:i:2:p:169-183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/145/2007-05-blankartkoester-sympos.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/237
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles B. Blankart & Gerrit B. Koester, 2006. "Political Economics versus Public Choice," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 171-200, May.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2006. "Reply to Blankart and Koester's Political Economics versus Public Choice Two Views of Political Economy in Competition," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 201-208, May.
    4. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    5. Pommerehne, Werner W & Frey, Bruno S, 1978. "Bureaucratic Behavior in Democracy: A Case Study," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 33(1-2), pages 98-112.
    6. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661926, April.
    7. Persson, Torsten & Roland, Gerard & Tabellini, Guido, 1998. "Towards micropolitical foundations of public finance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 685-694, May.
    8. anonymous, 2005. "Focus on Authors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 518-522.
    9. John G. Matsusaka, 2005. "Direct Democracy Works," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 185-206, Spring.
    10. Mueller, Dennis C., 1978. "Voting by veto," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 57-75, August.
    11. Dan Johansson, 2004. "Economics Without Entrepreneurship or Institutions: A Vocabulary Analysis of Graduate Textbooks," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 1(3), pages 515-538, December.
    12. Niskanen, William A, 1975. "Bureaucrats and Politicians," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 617-643, December.
    13. Charles B. Blankart & Dennis C. Mueller, 2002. "Alternativen der parlamentarischen Demokratie," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, February.
    14. Ashenfelter, Orley C & Kelley, Stanley, Jr, 1975. "Determinants of Participation in Presidential Elections," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 695-733, December.
    15. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    16. Charles Blankart & Dennis Mueller, 2004. "The Advantages of Pure Forms of Parliamentary Democracy over Mixed Forms," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 431-453, February.
    17. Buchanan,James M. & Congleton,Roger D., 2006. "Politics by Principle, Not Interest," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521031325, September.
    18. James M. Buchanan, 1954. "Individual Choice in Voting and the Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(4), pages 334-334.
    19. Daron Acemoglu, 2005. "Constitutions, Politics and Economics: A Review Essay on Persson and Tabellini's "The Economic Effect of Constitutions"," NBER Working Papers 11235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, September.
    21. William F. Shughart II & Laura Razzolini (ed.), 2001. "The Elgar Companion to Public Choice," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 459.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ringa Raudla, 2010. "Governing budgetary commons: what can we learn from Elinor Ostrom?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 201-221, December.

    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. Dennis Mueller, 2015. "Public choice, social choice, and political economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 379-387, June.
    2. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    3. Dennis C. MUELLER, 2014. "Public Choice, Social Choice, and Political Economy," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2014-03-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    4. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    5. Lorenz Blume & Jens Müller & Stefan Voigt & Carsten Wolf, 2009. "The economic effects of constitutions: replicating—and extending—Persson and Tabellini," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 197-225, April.
    6. Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2009. "Voting Motives, Group Identity, and Social Norms," Working Papers in Economics 366, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    7. Jan Schnellenbach & Christian Schubert, 2019. "A note on the behavioral political economy of innovation policy," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 1399-1414, November.
    8. John Bradbury & W. Crain, 2005. "Legislative district configurations and fiscal policy in American States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 385-407, December.
    9. Vlad Tarko, 2015. "The role of ideas in political economy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 17-39, March.
    10. Facchini, Francois, 2014. "The determinants of public spending: a survey in a methodological perspective," MPRA Paper 53006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Lorenz Blume & Thomas Döring & Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Fiscal Effects of Reforming Local Constitutions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(10), pages 2123-2140, August.
    12. Christopher J. Coyne & Thomas K. Duncan & Abigail R. Hall, 2021. "The political economy of state responses to infectious disease," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(4), pages 1119-1137, April.
    13. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    14. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 699-735, April.
    16. Caruso, Germán & Scartascini, Carlos & Tommasi, Mariano, 2015. "Are we all playing the same game? The economic effects of constitutions depend on the degree of institutionalization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 212-228.
    17. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    18. Matthias Benz & Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "Corporate Governance: What can we Learn from Public Governance?," IEW - Working Papers 166, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    19. Roger Congleton, 2014. "The contractarian constitutional political economy of James Buchanan," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 39-67, March.
    20. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2018. "Public choice and political science: a view from Europe," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 245-257, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Positive political economy; constitutional political economy; constitutional choice; general economic theory; public choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government

    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:ejw:journl:v:4:y:2007:i:2:p:169-183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.