IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v106y2012i04p908-909_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legislative Bargaining and the Dynamics of Public Investment

Author

Listed:
  • BATTAGLINI, MARCO
  • NUNNARI, SALVATORE
  • PALFREY, THOMAS R.

Abstract

We present a legislative bargaining model of the provision of a durable public good over an infinite horizon. In each period, there is a societal endowment that can either be invested in the public good or consumed. We characterize the optimal public policy, defined by the time path of investment and consumption. In a legislature representatives of each of n districts bargain over the current period's endowment for investment in the public good and transfers to each district. We analyze the Markov perfect equilibrium under different voting q-rules where q is the number of yes votes required for passage. We show that the efficiency of the public policy is increasing in q because higher q leads to higher investment in the public good and less pork. We examine the theoretical equilibrium predictions by conducting a laboratory experiment with five-person committees that compares three alternative voting rules: unanimity (q = 5), majority (q = 3), and dictatorship (q = 1).
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Battaglini, Marco & Nunnari, Salvatore & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2012. "Legislative Bargaining and the Dynamics of Public Investment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 908-909, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:106:y:2012:i:04:p:908-909_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055412000482/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Volden, Craig & Wiseman, Alan E., 2007. "Bargaining in Legislatures over Particularistic and Collective Goods," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 79-92, February.
    2. Walker, James M, et al, 2000. "Collective Choice in the Commons: Experimental Results on Proposed Allocation Rules and Votes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 212-234, January.
    3. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2007. "Inefficiency in Legislative Policymaking: A Dynamic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 118-149, March.
    4. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2008. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation, and Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 201-236, March.
    5. Matthias Messner & Mattias K. Polborn, 2004. "Voting on Majority Rules," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 115-132.
    6. Barseghyan, Levon & Battaglini, Marco & Coate, Stephen, 2013. "Fiscal policy over the real business cycle: A positive theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2223-2265.
    7. Choi, Syngjoo & Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar & Palfrey, Thomas, 2011. "Network architecture, salience and coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 76-90, September.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Michael Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2008. "Political Economy of Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 619-641, May.
    9. Richard T. Boylan & Richard D. McKelvey & John Ledyard, 1996. "Political competition in a model of economic growth: Some theoretical results (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 191-205.
    10. Tasos Kalandrakis, 2010. "Minimum winning coalitions and endogenous status quo," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 39(4), pages 617-643, October.
    11. Fréchette, Guillaume R. & Kagel, John H. & Lehrer, Steven F., 2003. "Bargaining in Legislatures: An Experimental Investigation of Open versus Closed Amendment Rules," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 221-232, May.
    12. Guillaume Fréchette & John Kagel & Massimo Morelli, 2012. "Pork versus public goods: an experimental study of public good provision within a legislative bargaining framework," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(3), pages 779-800, April.
    13. Harrison, Glenn W & Hirshleifer, Jack, 1989. "An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 201-225, February.
    14. Choi, Syngjoo & Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar, 2008. "Sequential equilibrium in monotone games: A theory-based analysis of experimental data," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 302-330, November.
    15. Elizabeth Maggie Penn, 2009. "A Model of Farsighted Voting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 36-54, January.
    16. Boylan, Richard T & McKelvey, Richard D, 1995. "Voting over Economic Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 860-871, September.
    17. Pedro Dal Bó, 2005. "Cooperation under the Shadow of the Future: Experimental Evidence from Infinitely Repeated Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1591-1604, December.
    18. Pierre Yared, 2010. "Politicians, Taxes and Debt," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 806-840.
    19. Diermeier, Daniel & Gailmard, Sean, 2006. "Self-Interest, Inequality, and Entitlement in Majoritarian Decision-Making," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 1(4), pages 327-350, October.
    20. Thomas R. Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1994. "Repeated Play, Cooperation and Coordination: An Experimental Study," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 545-565.
    21. Pedro Dal Bo & Guillaume R. Frochette, 2011. "The Evolution of Cooperation in Infinitely Repeated Games: Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 411-429, February.
    22. Kalandrakis, Anastassios, 2004. "A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 294-322, June.
    23. Bård Harstad, 2005. "Majority Rules and Incentives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1535-1568.
    24. Olson, Mancur, 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 567-576, September.
    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. Marco Battaglini & Thomas Palfrey, 2012. "The dynamics of distributive politics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(3), pages 739-777, April.
    2. Nunnari, Salvatore, 2021. "Dynamic legislative bargaining with veto power: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 186-230.
    3. Baron, David P. & Bowen, T. Renee & Nunnari, Salvatore, 2017. "Durable coalitions and communication: Public versus private negotiations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-13.
    4. Marco Battaglini & Salvatore Nunnari & Thomas Palfrey, 2011. "The Free Rider Problem: a Dynamic Analysis," Working Papers 1354, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    5. Hülya Eraslan & Kirill S. Evdokimov & Jan Zápal, 2022. "Dynamic Legislative Bargaining," Springer Books, in: Emin Karagözoğlu & Kyle B. Hyndman (ed.), Bargaining, chapter 0, pages 151-175, Springer.
    6. Bowen, T. Renee & Chen, Ying & Eraslan, Hülya & Zápal, Jan, 2017. "Efficiency of flexible budgetary institutions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 148-176.
    7. Miller, Luis & Montero, Maria & Vanberg, Christoph, 2018. "Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 60-92.
    8. Tremewan, James & Vanberg, Christoph, 2018. "Voting rules in multilateral bargaining: using an experiment to relax procedural assumptions," Working Papers 0651, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    9. Alessandro Riboni & Facundo Piguillem, 2011. "Dynamic Bargaining over Redistribution in Legislatures," 2011 Meeting Papers 1320, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Zapal, Jan, 2020. "Simple Markovian equilibria in dynamic spatial legislative bargaining," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Pohan Fong, 2008. "Endogenous Limits on Proposal Power," Discussion Papers 1465, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    12. Duggan, John & Kalandrakis, Tasos, 2012. "Dynamic legislative policy making," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1653-1688.
    13. Daniel Diermeier & Pohan Fong, 2011. "Legislative Bargaining with Reconsideration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 947-985.
    14. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    15. Kim, Duk Gyoo & Lim, Wooyoung, 2024. "Multilateral bargaining over the division of losses," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 59-76.
    16. Agranov, Marina & Cotton, Christopher & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Persistence of power: Repeated multilateral bargaining with endogenous agenda setting authority," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    17. Alessandro Riboni & Francisco J. Ruge-Murcia, 2010. "Monetary Policy by Committee: Consensus, Chairman Dominance, or Simple Majority?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 363-416.
    18. T. Renee Bowen & Ying Chen & H?lya Eraslan, 2014. "Mandatory versus Discretionary Spending: The Status Quo Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2941-2974, October.
    19. ,, 2014. "A dynamic theory of electoral competition," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), May.
    20. Baron, David P. & Bowen, T. Renee, 2013. "Dynamic Coalitions," Research Papers 2128, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

    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:cup:apsrev:v:106:y:2012:i:04:p:908-909_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    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.