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What impact does party fragmentation have on the likelihood of democracies to run a fiscal deficit? Past research is almost unanimous in finding that as the number of parties in a country's legislature or government grows, so does its probability of overspending. However, this finding is based largely on parliamentary systems, and there is no reason to believe that it should hold when executives are independent. In this article, I develop a theory for the impact of legislative fragmentation on budgetary politics in presidential democracies. I argue that unified presidential systems should tend most toward fiscal solvency but that increasing fragmentation should actually facilitate budget balancing when government is divided. The logic is that presidents, who are likely to prefer balanced budgets due to their broad constituencies, will be better able to craft acceptable governing coalitions from divided legislatures than from ones controlled by a single opposing party. They will also be better able to circumvent such fragmented legislatures should a coalition prove impossible. I test these propositions quantitatively in all presidential democracies from 1976 to 2007. The results provide support for the theory and highlight the contrasting impact of legislative fragmentation on public policy in presidential vs. parliamentary systems.

Adapted from the source document.

Many developing countries are seeking to improve governance with fiscal decentralization. It is therefore worth revisiting what we know about political and economic institutions to understand how and under what circumstances decentralization can be beneficial. In an effort to do that, I review past research on the governance implications of devolving power to subnational authorities. Based on this review, I find that the gains from decentralization depend sensitively on how subnational authorities and intergovernmental relations are structured. I therefore conclude the paper by drawing nine lessons from theory and experience to help improve the design of decentralized institutions. Adapted from the source document.

What explains the variation of trade protection across countries and years? The author argues that other things equal, democracies with strong parties will choose freer trade policies. He focuses on two aspects of party strength—organizational centralization and stable party linkages to large groups of the electorate. He contends that legislative logrolls leading to high protection are significantly less likely when parties are centralized. Furthermore, because parties with stable connections to the electorate have longer time horizons, the author argues that they will generally support more open trade policies that provide long-run economic benefits. Finally, he contends that parties linked to large electoral groups—as measured by district size—will prefer public goods such as freer trade over trade patronage. After coding a measure of party centralization developed by Cary and Shugart (1995), the author conducts a quantitative analysis of democracies from 1975-2000. His results support the theory and highlight an understudied institution in trade policy.