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Institution design and public good provision: an experimental study of the vote of confidence procedure

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  • Chloe Tergiman

Abstract

Parliamentary democracies use the vote of confidence procedure, which links the survival of a government with that of a bill, in order to discipline members of the majority. In this paper I investigate the role that the vote of confidence procedure has on public good provision and show that it has unintended negative consequences: even when efficient, public goods may be turned down in favor of earmarked projects. I use a laboratory experiment to test my model and show that the increase in voting cohesion comes at the cost of a 23 % reduction in public good provision and more unequal earmarking. Copyright Economic Science Association 2015

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  • Chloe Tergiman, 2015. "Institution design and public good provision: an experimental study of the vote of confidence procedure," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 697-717, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:18:y:2015:i:4:p:697-717
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-014-9423-y
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    Cited by:

    1. Nunnari, Salvatore, 2021. "Dynamic legislative bargaining with veto power: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 186-230.
    2. Marina Agranov & Christopher Cotton & Chloe Tergiman, 2016. "Persistence Of Power: Repeated Multilateral Bargaining," Working Paper 1374, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    3. Tremewan, James & Vanberg, Christoph, 2018. "Voting rules in multilateral bargaining: using an experiment to relax procedural assumptions," Working Papers 0651, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Emanuel Vespa, 2017. "The determinants of voting in multilateral bargaining games," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(1), pages 26-43, July.
    5. Li, Shuwen & Houser, Daniel, 2022. "Stochastic bargaining in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 687-715.
    6. Benno Torgler, 2022. "The power of public choice in law and economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1410-1453, December.
    7. Christiansen, Nels, 2015. "Greasing the wheels: Pork and public goods contributions in a legislative bargaining experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 64-79.
    8. Vespa, Emanuel I., 2016. "Malapportionment and multilateral bargaining: An experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 64-74.

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