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Dynamic stability and reform of political institutions

Roger Lagunoff

Games and Economic Behavior, 2009, vol. 67, issue 2, 569-583

Abstract: This paper examines endogenous institutional change in a class of dynamic political games. The political aggregation rules used at date t+1 are instrumental choices under rules at date t. Effectively, rules are "players" who can strategically delegate future policy-making authority to different rules. A political rule is stable if it selects itself. A reform occurs when an alternative rule is selected. The stability of a political rule is shown to depend on whether its choices are dynamically consistent. For instance, simple majority rules can be shown to be dynamically consistent in many common environments where wealth-weighted voting rules are not. The result extends to political rules that incorporate private activities such as extra-legal protests, threats, or private investment. The approach is one way of understanding various explanations of institutional change proposed in the literature. A parametric model of public goods provision gives an illustration.

Keywords: Endogenous; political; institutions; Recursive; Dynamic; political; games; Reform; Stability; Dynamically; consistent; rules; Forward; and; backward; consistency; Inessential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Dynamic Stability and Reform of Political Institutions (2006) Downloads
Working Paper: Dynamic Stability and Reform of Political Institutions (2005) Downloads
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