Majority-rule bargaining and the under provision of public investment goods

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Leblanc, W; Snyder, JM; Tripathi, M
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); California Institute of Technology; Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(99)00061-4
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 21-47
• 关键词: positive political economy; bargaining models; public investment; government budgets; legislatures

摘要

Despite evidence that modern democracies systematically shortchange public investment goods, relatively little theoretical work exists to explain this phenomenon. We build on Baron and Ferejohn's (American Political Science Review, 83(4) (1989) 1181-1206) bargaining model to describe public investments in a setting of budgetary politics. Specifically, we show that underinvestment inherently arises from distributive politics within a majoritarian institution. The inability of current majorities to contract with future ones drives a wedge between spending on consumption today and investing for future consumption. Extensions to the model demonstrate that earmarking future returns to specific players and/or detaching consumption from investment decisions yields more efficient levels of public investment. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.