IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v17y1997i4p455-474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parliament as a wealth-maximizing institution: The right to the residual and the right to vote

Author

Listed:
  • Barzel, Yoram

Abstract

What could explain the emergence of parliament and its ascendancy? I argue that dictatorial kings encountered difficulties in securing the cooperation of their subjects because they could not commit not to confiscate subjects' gains. Where the gain from cooperation increased and kings were more secure, they deliberately gave up some of their power to be able to commit themselves to keep their promises.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Barzel, Yoram, 1997. "Parliament as a wealth-maximizing institution: The right to the residual and the right to vote," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 455-474, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:17:y:1997:i:4:p:455-474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144-8188(97)00033-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DeAngelo, Harry, 1981. "Competition and Unanimity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(1), pages 18-27, March.
    2. Robert H. Bates & Da-Hsiang Donald Lien, 1985. "A Note on Taxation, Development, and Representative Government," Politics & Society, , vol. 14(1), pages 53-70, March.
    3. Yoram Barzel & Tim R. Sass, 1990. "The Allocation of Resources by Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 745-771.
    4. Barzel, Yoram & Kiser, Edgar, 1997. "The Development and Decline of Medieval Voting Institutions: A Comparison of England and France," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 244-260, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dreher, Axel & Voigt, Stefan, 2011. "Does membership in international organizations increase governments' credibility? Testing the effects of delegating powers," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 326-348, September.
    2. Voigt, Stefan & Ebeling, Michael & Blume, Lorenz, 2007. "Improving credibility by delegating judicial competence--the case of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 348-373, March.
    3. Hayo, Bernd & Voigt, Stefan, 2007. "Explaining de facto judicial independence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 269-290, September.
    4. Jim Rose & Simon Hay, 2001. "Three Steps Towards More Effective Development Assistance," Treasury Working Paper Series 01/26, New Zealand Treasury.
    5. Mark Koyama, 2010. "The political economy of expulsion: the regulation of Jewish moneylending in medieval England," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 374-406, December.
    6. Voigt, Stefan, 2005. "Membership has its Privileges: On the Effects of Delegating Powers Internationally," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 73, University of Kassel, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    7. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    8. Kyriazis, Nicholas K. & Karayiannis, Anastassios D., 2011. "Democracy, Institutional Changes and Economic Development: The Case of Ancient Athens," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 61-91.
    9. Dalibor Roháč, 2008. "The unanimity rule and religious fractionalisation in the Polish-Lithuanian Republic," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 111-128, June.
    10. Jean-Michel Josselin & Alain Marciano, 2000. "Displacing your Principal. Two Historical Case Studies of Some Interest for the Constitutional Future of Europe," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 217-233, November.
    11. Rosolino A. Candela & Vincent Geloso, 2019. "Coase and transaction costs reconsidered: the case of the English lighthouse system," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 331-349, December.
    12. Candela, Rosolino A. & Piano, Ennio E., 2020. "The Art and Science of Economic Explanation: Introduction to the Special Issue in Honor of Yoram Barzel," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 119-126, April.
    13. Candela, Rosolino A., 2020. "The political economy of insecure property rights: insights from the Kingdom of Sicily," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 233-249, April.
    14. Roland Kirstein & Stefan Voigt, 2006. "The Violent and the Weak," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 863-889, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yoram Barzel & Edgar Kiser, 2002. "Taxation and Voting Rights in Medieval England and France," Rationality and Society, , vol. 14(4), pages 473-507, November.
    2. Candela, Rosolino A. & Piano, Ennio E., 2020. "The Art and Science of Economic Explanation: Introduction to the Special Issue in Honor of Yoram Barzel," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 119-126, April.
    3. Jeremy Horpedahl, 2011. "Political exchange and the voting franchise: universal democracy as an emergent process," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 203-220, September.
    4. Charles Angelucci & Simone Meraglia, 2015. "Trade, Law and Order, and Political Liberties: Theory and Application to English Medieval Boroughs," Discussion Papers 1509, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    5. Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 127-143, March.
    6. Desiree A. Desierto, 2018. "Formal models of the political resource curse," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 225-259, August.
    7. Roger Congleton, 2011. "Why local governments do not maximize profits: on the value added by the representative institutions of town and city governance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 187-207, October.
    8. Gregory Dow, 1996. "Replicating Walrasian equilibria using markets for membership in labor-managed firms," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 2(1), pages 147-162, December.
    9. Pierre Bachas & Matthew Fisher-Post & Anders Jensen & Gabriel Zucman, 2022. "Globalization and Factor Income Taxation," Working Papers halshs-03693211, HAL.
    10. Paul Seabright, 1993. "Managing Local Commons: Theoretical Issues in Incentive Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 113-134, Fall.
    11. Stanley L. Winer, 2016. "The Political Economy of Taxation: Power, Structure, Redistribution," Carleton Economic Papers 16-15, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    12. Bontems, Philippe & Fulton, Murray, 2009. "Organizational structure, redistribution and the endogeneity of cost: Cooperatives, investor-owned firms and the cost of procurement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 322-343, October.
    13. Kustov, Alexander & Pardelli, Giuliana, 2024. "Beyond Diversity: The Role of State Capacity in Fostering Social Cohesion in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    14. Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2021. "On a stakeholder model of corporate governance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 321-343, June.
    15. Jacque Gao, 2022. "Investment with insecure property rights: Capital outflow openness under dictatorship," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 569-595, July.
    16. David Wiens, 2015. "Natural resources and government responsiveness," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 14(1), pages 84-105, February.
    17. Gustavo Bergantiños & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, 2023. "Decentralized revenue sharing from broadcasting sports," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 27-44, January.
    18. Margaret Levi, 1988. "The Transformation of Agrarian Institutions: An Introduction and Perspective," Politics & Society, , vol. 16(2-3), pages 159-169, June.
    19. Silve, Arthur & Verdier, Thierry, 2023. "The Dynastic Transmission of Power, Exit Options and the Coevolution of Rent-seeking Elites," CEPR Discussion Papers 18165, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Sung Kim & Johannes Urpelainen, 2016. "Multilateral energy lending and urban bias in autocracies: promoting fossil fuels," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 167-190, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:17:y:1997:i:4:p:455-474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.