Analyzing the case for government intervention in a representative democracy

Timothy Besley and Stephen Coate

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The welfare economic method for analyzing the case for government intervention is often critized for ignoring the political determination of policies. The standard method of accounting for this critique studies the case for intervention under the constraint that the level of the instrument in question will be politically determined. We critize this method for its implicit assumption that new interventions will not affect the level of existing policy instruments. We argue that this assumption is particularly misleading in suggesting that political economy concerns must dampen the case for intervention.

Keywords: Government intervention; public choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H10 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 70 pages
Date: 1997-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Analyzing the Case for Government Intervention in a Representative Democracy (1997)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:2113

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