IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v8y1996i4p489-516.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Macroeconomic populism: A formal representation and a suggested interpretation of the Peruvian experience (1985-90)

Author

Listed:
  • Daniele Checchi

    (Department of Economics, University of Milan)

Abstract

This paper investigates some reasons for the recurrence of populist governments. When a populist experience is viewed as a political compensation for economic inequalities, the analysis of the emergence of populist government must focus on the interplay of economic and political determinants. A political-economic model with three social groups and three candidates is proposed. It explains the emergence of populist candidates as the result of the existence of a wide informal sector in a polarized society, where pro-labour and pro-capital candidates pursue the exclusive interests of their constituencies. The conditions that make the elections of a populist candidate more likely include the size of the informal sector, the electoral rules, the polarization of the political conflict between left and right and the permanence of the informal sector, notwithstanding past populist experiences. A brief historical outline of Alán García's government in Peru (1985-90) shows that the existence of a wide informal sector in the economy was one of the key features for his electoral platform, for his election and for the theoretical justification of the 'heterodox' policies he implemented.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniele Checchi, 1996. "Macroeconomic populism: A formal representation and a suggested interpretation of the Peruvian experience (1985-90)," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 489-516.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:8:y:1996:i:4:p:489-516
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1328(199607)8:4<489::AID-JID264>3.0.CO;2-U
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria & Spolaore, Enrico, 1994. "How cynical can an incumbent be? Strategic policy in a model of government spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 121-140, September.
    2. Lopez, Ramon E. & Riveros, Luis A., 1989. "Macroeconomic adjustment and the labor market in four Latin American countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 335, The World Bank.
    3. Torsten Persson, 1992. "Politics and economic policy," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 62, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    5. Jeffrey Sachs, 1990. "Social Conflict and Populist Policies in Latin America," International Economic Association Series, in: Renato Brunetta & Carlo Dell’Aringa (ed.), Labour Relations and Economic Performance, chapter 6, pages 137-169, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    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. Emre Ünal, 2021. "Economic populism and institutional changes in wage–labor relations," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 407-433, September.

    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. McBride, Michael, 2005. "Crises, reforms, and regime persistence in sub-Saharan Africa," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 688-707, September.
    2. Stephen Morris & Stephen Coate, 1999. "Policy Persistence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1327-1336, December.
    3. Caplan, Bryan, 2003. "The idea trap: the political economy of growth divergence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 183-203, June.
    4. Dellis, Arnaud, 2007. "Blame-game politics in a coalition government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 77-96, February.
    5. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    6. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2018. "Rational ignorance, populism, and reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 119-135.
    7. Gilles Saint‐Paul & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2021. "Engineering crises: Favoritism and strategic fiscal indiscipline," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 583-610, November.
    8. Lastauskas, Povilas & Stakėnas, Julius, 2020. "Labor market reforms and the monetary policy environment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    9. Che, Jiahua & Facchini, Giovanni, 2004. "Dual Track Liberalization: With and Without Losers," Working Papers 04-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    10. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    11. Mondino, Guillermo & Sturzenegger, Federico & Tommasi, Mariano, 1996. "Recurrent High Inflation and Stabilization: A Dynamic Game," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 981-996, November.
    12. Luisa Montuschi & Omar Chisari, 2016. "En memoria de Julio H. G. Olivera (1929 – 2016)," Económica, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, vol. 0(1), pages 3-21, January-D.
    13. Agnello, Luca & Castro, Vitor & Jalles, João Tovar & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2015. "What determines the likelihood of structural reforms?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 129-145.
    14. Pedro Dal Bo & Andrew Foster & Louis Putterman, 2010. "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2205-2229, December.
    15. Axel Dreher & Sarah Langlotz & Silvia Marchesi, 2017. "Information Transmission And Ownership Consolidation In Aid Programs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1671-1688, October.
    16. Andreas Bernecker & Pierre C. Boyer & Christina Gathmann, 2021. "The Role of Electoral Incentives for Policy Innovation: Evidence from the US Welfare Reform," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 26-57, May.
    17. Hefeker, Carsten & Neugart, Michael, 2010. "Labor market regulation and the legal system," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 218-225, September.
    18. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Gino Gancia, 2013. "Uncertainty, Electoral Incentives and Political Myopia," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 373-400, May.
    19. Ethan Ilzetzki, 2015. "A Positive Theory of Tax Reform," Discussion Papers 1526, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    20. Rehme, Gunther, 2006. "Redistribution and economic growth in integrated economies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 392-408, June.

    More about this item

    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:wly:jintdv:v:8:y:1996:i:4:p:489-516. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    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.