Endogenous Limits on Proposal Power

Daniel Diermeier and Pohan Fong

No 1464, Discussion Papers from Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science

Abstract: We present a dynamic model of legislative bargaining in which policy making proceeds until the proposer has no more incentive to make a new proposal to replace the previously approved policy. We characterize stationary Markov perfect equilibria for the game and show that in all pure-strategy equilibria, a majority of voters without proposal power have an incentive to protect each others' benefits to secure their own long-term bargaining positions in the legislature. As a consequence, the value of proposal power is constrained.

Keywords: Parliamentary democracy; proportional representation; government formation; policy dynamics; lack of commitment; inefficiency. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 C7 H1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-05
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://pohan.fong.googlepages.com/bdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1464

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science
Address: Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Northwestern University, 580 Jacobs Center, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208-2014
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Fran Walker ().