IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mib/wpaper/290.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do The Right Thing. A comparison of politicians' incentives across constitutional systems

Author

Listed:
  • Michela Cella
  • Giovanna Iannantuoni
  • Elena Manzoni

Abstract

Constitutional structures shape politicians' behaviour and hence policy outcomes through the different incentive schemes at work. In this paper we analyse these mechanisms in parliamentary and presidential systems. Such a comparison is carried over by analysing how the two systems are able to select the efficient policy in presence of asymmetric information. The constitutional structures differ in that the policy proposal in parliamentary democracies is observable and confidence-dependent. The main findings suggest that the parliament responds to the incentive scheme better in presidential systems due to less uncertainty that legislators face over their term limit. However, the parliamentary system induces the executive to behave more efficiently due to selection and disciplining effeects.

Suggested Citation

  • Michela Cella & Giovanna Iannantuoni & Elena Manzoni, 2015. "Do The Right Thing. A comparison of politicians' incentives across constitutional systems," Working Papers 290, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.dems.unimib.it/repec/pdf/mibwpaper290.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Diermeier & Razvan Vlaicu, 2011. "Executive Control and Legislative Success," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 846-871.
    2. Besley, Timothy, 2007. "Principled Agents?: The Political Economy of Good Government," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283910.
    3. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2002. "Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661314, 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. Luca Bettarelli & Michela Cella & Giovanna Iannantuoni & Elena Manzoni, 2021. "It’s a matter of confidence. Institutions, government stability and economic outcomes," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(2), pages 709-738, July.

    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. Michela Cella & Giovanna Iannantuoni & Elena Manzoni, 2014. "Constitutional Rules and Efficient Policies," Working Papers 270, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2014.
    2. Aytimur, R. Emre & Bruns, Christian, 2015. "On ignorant voters and busy politicians," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 252, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. Schild, Christopher-Johannes, 2013. "Do female mayors make a difference? Evidence from Bavaria," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2013, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    4. Bracco, Emanuele & Lockwood, Ben & Porcelli, Francesco & Redoano, Michela, 2015. "Intergovernmental grants as signals and the alignment effect: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 78-91.
    5. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    6. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7p9a2ge1op95oao5se2oc4ann7 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Gutmann, Jerg & Metelska-Szaniawska, Katarzyna & Voigt, Stefan, 2024. "Leader characteristics and constitutional compliance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Konstantinos Matakos & Riikka Savolainen & Orestis Troumpounis & Janne Tukiainen & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2024. "Electoral Institutions and Intraparty Cohesion," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 883-916.
    9. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2006. "Better Rules or Stronger Communities? On the Social Foundations of Institutional Change and Its Economic Effects," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 82(1), pages 1-25, January.
    10. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Vincent Rollet, 2022. "Electoral Turnovers," NBER Working Papers 29766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Michał Mackiewicz, 2006. "Przyczyny deficytu finansów publicznych w świetle nowej ekonomii politycznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-22.
    12. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Francesco Sobbrio, 2020. "The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3305-3336.
    13. Atonu Rabbani, 2017. "Can Leaders Promote Better Health Behavior? Learning from a Sanitation and Hygiene Communication Experiment in Rural Bangladesh," Working Papers id:11904, eSocialSciences.
    14. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    15. Amedeo Fossati & Marcello Montefiori, 2016. "Antonio De Viti de Marco, political competition, and the principle of minimum means," Working papers 49, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    16. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    17. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Lin, Kun-Li & Doong, Shuh-Chyi, 2020. "State-controlled banks and income smoothing. Do politics matter?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    18. Redoano, Michela, 2012. "Fiscal Interactions Among European Countries: Does the EU Matter?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 102, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    19. Charles Leung & Sam Tang & Nicolaas Groenewold, 2006. "Growth Volatility and Technical Progress: A Simple Rent-seeking Model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 159-178, August.
    20. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2023. "Standing on the shoulders of giants or science? Lessons from ordoliberalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 197-211, June.
    21. Troeger, Vera & Schneider, Christina J., 2012. "Strategic Budgeteering and Debt Allocation," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 85, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    presidential system; parliamentary system; confidence vote; hierarchical accountability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mib:wpaper:290. 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: Matteo Pelagatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpmibit.html .

    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.