The Reform Dilemma in Polarized Democracies

Hans Gersbach and Oriol Tejada

No 12673, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study the feasibility and efficiency of policy reforms in democracies. We develop a simple election model where (i) reforms are costly for voters and politicians and these costs increase with the extent of policy change, and (ii) politicians differ in their ability to carry out reforms efficiently. We identify a so-called Reform Dilemma, which manifests itself in two variants. From a static perspective, low-reform-ability politicians are elected when political parties are polarized, who then impose high costs on citizens for each reform step. This property of elections arises as low reform ability is a substitute for policy commitment. From a dynamic perspective, incumbents may choose socially undesirable policies to align the social need for reform with their own reform ability and are thus re-elected regardless of their reform ability.

Keywords: Elections; Democracy; Costs of reform; Political polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Reform Dilemma in polarized democracies (2018)
Working Paper: A Reform Dilemma in Polarized Democracies (2016)
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