Political competition over property rights enforcement

Jan U. Auerbach

European Economic Review, 2021, vol. 131, issue C

Abstract: I study what level of tax-financed property rights enforcement societies choose in elections when appropriators can steal from producers. Restrictions determine who can run for office. Candidates propose enforcement levels and tax rates. The election winner keeps the budget surplus. If the majority of voters are producers, then fewer restrictions on who can run for office are associated with more secure property rights. Lifting restrictions on who can run benefits producers, while lifting restrictions on who can vote does not. If the majority of voters are appropriators, then elections lead to adverse outcomes, irrespective of who can run for office.

Keywords: Political process; Political institution; Political competition; Property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O17 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292120302348
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:131:y:2021:i:c:s0014292120302348

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103604

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().