期刊名称:HIER Discussion Paper Series / Harvard Institute of Economic Research
出版年度:2005
卷号:2005
出版社:Harvard Institute of Economic Research
摘要:Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry
out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise
due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that
seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing
individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial. We study how
differences in "party discipline" shape fiscal policy choices. In particular, we
examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a
three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making.
We find that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the
efficiency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the
degree of party discipline.