Suchergebnisse

In this paper we analyse the effect of constitutional structures over policy outcomes. In particular, we exploit the heterogeneity in parliamentary systems deriving from the presence and the use of the confidence vote to investigate whether stable and unstable parliamentary systems behave differently in terms of the policies they implement. This finer partition of parliamentary systems allows us to identify effects that are more robust than the ones previously discussed in the literature. We show that the difference between presidential and parliamentary systems documented in previous works is driven by a difference between presidential and stable parliamentary systems. We suggest that possible transmission channels are legislative cohesion and (the absence of) selection.

We introduce a model with strategic voting in a parliamentary election with proportional representation and uncertainty about voters' preferences. In any equilibrium of the model, most voters only vote for those parties whose positions are extreme. In the resulting parliament, a consensus government forms and the policy maximizing the sum of utilities of the members of the government is implemented.