Endogenous constitutions

Davide Ticchi () and Andrea Vindigni

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: We present a theory of the choice of alternative democratic constitutions, a majoritarian or a consensual one, in an unequal society. A majoritarian democracy redistributes resources from the collectivity toward relatively few people, and has a relatively small government and low level of taxation. A consensual democracy redistributes resources toward a broader spectrum of social groups but also has a larger government and a higher level of taxation. We show that a consensual system turns out to be preferred by society when ex ante income inequality is relatively low, while a majoritarian system is chosen when income inequality is relatively high. We also obtain that consensual democracies should be expected to be ruled more often by center-left coalitions while the right should have an advantage in majoritarian constitutions. The implications for the relationship between inequality and redistribution are discussed. Historical evidence and a cross-sectional analysis support our results.

Keywords: Endogenous constitutions; consensual democracy; majoritarian democracy; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D72 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-02, Revised 2005-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/896.pdf Whole Paper (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Endogenous Constitutions (2010)
Working Paper: Endogenous Constitutions (2003)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:896

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).