Bureaucratic Decision Costs and Endogenous Agency Expertise

This article analyzes the effect of the cost that an agencymust incur to adopt a new regulation (the "enactment cost")on the agency's incentive to invest in expertise. The effectof the enactment cost on agency expertise depends on whetherthe agency would regulate if it fails to acquire additionalinformation about the regulation's effects. If an uninformedagency would regulate, increasing enactment costs increasesagency expertise; if an uninformed agency would retain the statusquo, increasing enactment costs decreases agency expertise.These results may influence the behavior of an uninformed overseer,such as a court or legislature, that can manipulate the agency'senactment costs. Such an overseer must balance its interestin influencing agency policy preferences against its interestin increasing agency expertise. The article discusses the implicationsof these results for various topics in institutional design,including judicial and executive review of agency regulations,structure-and-process theories of congressional oversight, nationalsecurity, criminal procedure, and constitutional law.     

Dynamic legislative decision making when interest groups control the agenda

We consider dynamic decision making in a legislature, in which in each period legislators vote between the status quo (previous period?s policy) and a new bill. However, the agenda formation process is captured by interest groups, that is, the new bill on the agenda is determined by an all-pay auction among these groups. We show that convergence to the median voter of the legislature arises if interest groups are patient enough but not necessarily otherwise. We characterize the bound on the speed of convergence in a family of stationary equilibria in which policy bounces between right-wing and left-wing policies. We also show that convergence may be faster if organized interest groups represent only one side of the policy space, e.g., when only business and not consumer interests are organized.     

DO TAX CUTS ENCOURAGE RENT SEEKING BY TOP CORPORATE EXECUTIVES? THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper explores the role of tax policy in shaping incentives for executive effort (labor supply) and rent seeking within the firm. We develop a theoretical model that distinguishes between effort and rent‐seeking responses to income taxes, and provides a framework to estimate a lower bound for the rent‐seeking response. Using executive compensation and governance data, we find that rent seeking represents an important component of the response to changes in tax rates, especially among executives in firms with the worst corporate governance. (JEL D31, G30, H21)     

The voter initiative and the power of the governor: evidence from campaign expenditures

Although a great deal of research examines the impact of the voter initiative process on the state legislature, the consequences for the state executive branch have been largely ignored. The voter initiative process provides the governor with a method to circumvent the legislature, which may increase the power of the governor in theory. However, it also provides citizens with a means to bypass the traditional lawmaking process and avoid the governor’s veto. This may reduce the power of the governor and lead to policies farther from the preferences of the governor. This study examines the impact of the voter initiative process on the power of the state governor by estimating total election cycle spending. Campaign expenditures are expected to reflect any sustained gain or loss in power due to the availability of the voter initiative process. The results indicate that gubernatorial campaign expenditures are significantly lower in states in which the voter initiative process is available. This finding suggests that state governors sustain a loss in political power when the voter initiative is available. Additionally, the findings imply that individuals may employ the voter initiative process as a substitute for gubernatorial support.     

The informational effects of competition and collusion in legislative politics

We use a mechanism design approach to study the organization of interest groups in an informational model of lobbying. Interest groups influence the legislature only by communicating private information on their preferences and not by means of monetary transfers. Interest groups have private information on their ideal points in a one-dimensional policy space and may either compete or adopt more collusive behaviors. Optimal policies result from a trade-off between imposing rules which are non-responsive to the groups' preferences and flexibility that pleases groups better. Within a strong coalition, interest groups credibly share information which facilitates communication of their joint interests, helps screening by the legislature and induces flexible policies responsive to the groups' joint interests (an informativeness effect). Competing interest groups better transmit information on their individual preferences (a screening effect). The socially and privately optimal organization of lobbying favors competition between groups only when their preferences are not too congruent with those of the legislature. With more congruence, a strong coalition is preferred. Finally, within a weak coalition, interest groups must design incentive compatible collusive mechanisms to share information. Such weak coalitions are always inefficient.     

Presidential Reputation and the Veto

This paper develops a dynamic model of the bargaining between a legislature and an executive with veto power. The dynamic nature of the model provides the executive with incentives to use the veto as a reputation building device in order to gain more favorable legislative outcomes. The model illustrates that the implicit threat of building a reputation may cause the legislature will be more accommodating in its proposals to the executive. The model illustrates the possibility of a ``honeymoon period' of legislative accommodation followed by a decline in the president's influence. This paper also explores ways in which the legislature might mitigate the effects of presidential reputation building.     

Lobbying and discretion

When interest groups compete to influence legislators, the resulting legislation is often vague, and thus obliges the groups to continue their fight in the executive. On its face, this seems inefficient—at least from the point of view of the groups. We explore this intuition in a model of “nested lobbying” in which interest groups first compete to influence a legislative agenda setter, then compete to influence legislative votes over the resulting agenda. If the resulting legislation grants discretion to the executive, the final prize is allocated in yet one more contest in the bureaucracy. We find that when the status quo is non-discretionary, competition over the agenda never results in an agenda that includes discretion. Surprisingly, however, a discretionary status quo can stand with probability 1 if the preferences of the bureaucracy, the legislature, and the agenda setter are arranged in an “iron triangle”. Specifically, the bureaucracy and agenda setter must be biased in favor of one group, while the legislature is biased in favor of the other.     

家族企业高管薪酬机制对代理成本影响的实证分析

本文利用我国338家上市家族企业2006年的数据,研究高管人员薪酬机制对上市家族企业代理成本的影响,得出以下结论:(1)高管人员薪酬机制对降低上市家族企业代理成本有显著作用;(2)高管人员家族化背景对薪酬机制效果有负向调节效应,职业经理人薪酬机制的效果比家族管理者更明显;(3)家族自利倾向对薪酬机制效果也有负向调节效应,家族自利倾向越明显,薪酬机制的效果越差。     

Do interest groups reward politicians for their votes in the legislature? Evidence from the great recession

ABSTRACT

Interest groups lobby politicians in various ways to influence their policy decisions, especially, their voting decisions in the legislature. Most, if not all, of the studies on this issue examine ”pre-vote” lobbying activities of interest groups that occur before politicians vote in the legislature. In this paper, however, I examine ”post-vote” lobbying activities of interest groups that occur after politicians vote in the legislature. By using data on the amount of monetary contributions given by interest groups to the members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have served in the 109th (2005–06) through 111th (2009–10) Congress, I find evidence that voting in favour of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) of 2008, one of the most significant pieces of legislation and possibly the biggest government bailout in U.S. economic history, has increased the amount of monetary contributions that politicians receive from the interest groups in the financial sector after the passage of the EESA. I also discuss two reasons for such post-vote lobbying and find empirical evidence for one of them.     

论人民法院对行政立法的审查

人民法院是中国的审判机关,同时也行使国家司法监督权。人民法院对行政权的监督主要是通过司法审查的形式来实现的。但目前在中国行政立法享有司法豁免权,这就使行政法治成为一句空话。从美国的司法实践来看,将中国的行政立法纳入司法审查的范围是十分必要的。要想真正实现行政法治,首先应在立法上明确规定人民法院对行政立法的司法审查权;其次要明确司法审查中人民的审查要件、审查对象及审查标准;最后要提高法院的在司法审查中的地位和司法上的独立性。     

Ideology and endogenous constitutions

We study a legislature where decisions are made by playing an agenda-setting game. Legislators are concerned about their electoral prospects but they are also genuinely concerned for the legislature to make the correct decision. We show that when ideological polarization is positive but not too large (and the status quo is extremely inefficient), institutions in which the executive has either no constraints (autocracy) or many constraints (unanimity) are preferable to democracies that operate under an intermediate number of constraints (simple majority rule). When instead ideological polarization is large (and the status quo is only moderately inefficient), simple majority turns out to be preferable.     

Explaining constitution-makers’ preferences: the cases of Estonia and the United States

This article is concerned with the effects of the kinds of framers involved in constitution-making on the content of constitutional provisions proposed during the drafting process. It tests the hypotheses that predict framers’ constitutional preferences on the basis of their institutional position, partisan background and constitutional expertise with two specific cases: the Constitutional Assembly of Estonia (1991–1992) and the Federal Convention (1787) of the United States. The case studies show that most of the hypotheses find only partial confirmation in both instances of constitution-making. The institutional position of a framer (being a member of existing legislature or executive) and constitutional expertise does not necessarily influence his or her constitutional preferences in the predicted way. The only theoretical proposition that is corroborated in both cases concerns the importance of group interest in a constitutional choice of electoral system and modes of representation: in the Estonian case, the design of the constitutional electoral rules was strongly influenced by partisan interest; in the US case, the interests of territorial subunits played a major role.     

Campaign Spending with Office-Seeking Politicians, Rational Voters, and Multiple Lobbies

I introduce a microfounded model of campaign finance with office-seeking politicians, a continuum of voters, and a large number of heterogeneous lobbies. Lobbies make contributions to politicians according to a common agency framework. Politicians use contributions to finance their electoral expenditures. Voters are not fooled by electoral expenditures: they are influenced in a way that is consistent with the equilibrium behavior of lobbies and politicians. The model is used to: (i) determine the relation between campaign spending and the deviation from the median voter's preferred policy; (ii) show the informational value of lobbies' contributions; (iii) evaluate the welfare implications of restricting campaign spending; and (iv) interpret the empirical finding that campaign expenditures have a very low effect on election outcome. Although in equilibrium advertising provides voters with useful information, under reasonable parameter values, a ban on campaign contributions makes the median voter better off. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D72, D82, M37.     

Campaign Advertising and Voter Welfare

This paper investigates the role of campaign advertising and the opportunity of legal restrictions on it. An electoral race is modelled as a signalling game with three classes of players: many voters, two candidates, and one interest group. The group has non–verifiable insider information on the candidates' quality and, on the basis of this information, offers a contribution to each candidate in exchange for a favourable policy position. Candidates spend the contributions they receive on non–directly informative advertising. This paper shows that: (1) a separating equilibrium exists in which the group contributes to a candidate only if the insider information about that candidate is positive; (2) although voters are fully rational, a ban on campaign advertising can be welfare–improving; and (3) split contributions may arise in equilibrium (and, if they arise too often, they are detrimental to voters).     

Judicial Branch, Checks and Balances and Political Accountability

This paper attempts to combine the political economics models on separation of powers between the legislature and the executive with public choice theories on the behavior of the judicial branch. We obtain a model of political accountability and checks and balances with up to three government branches: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. We conclude that an independent judiciary improves the political accountability of democratic systems relative to the political economics models with two government branches. An accommodating judiciary, however, changes the distribution of political rents without improving accountability.     

Discrimination in matchmaking: evidence from the price policy of a French marriage bureau

This article shows how a matchmaking agency may improve the quality of serious meetings between individuals seeking long-term relationship, thanks to a price discrimination policy. Its filtering is based on objective and official characteristics (sex, age and contract's environment) and on implicit criteria: the few asked characteristics by its clients.     

Project Aid or Budget Aid? The Interests of Governments and Financial Institutions

The paper compares different aid policy instruments and their effect on the target group. Starting from a situation where interest groups compete for the resources of the government, international financial institutions aim to change the policy outcome. They can either directly support one group or condition their financial help to the government on its policy. Apart from a normative analysis which policy is more adequate to help one group, the paper asks what happens if the aid agency is driven by bureaucratic self‐interest.     

Partisanship and the effectiveness of oversight

We examine the welfare effects of partisanship in a model of checks and balances. An executive makes a policy proposal and an overseer then decides whether or not to veto the executive's proposal. Both the executive and the overseer have private information as to the correct policy to pursue, and both are motivated by the desire to appear competent. A partisan overseer is one who, in addition to seeking to promote her own reputation, cares how her decision will impact the executive's reputation. Our main result is that partisanship can improve the efficacy of an oversight regime, as the distortions caused by a partisan overseer's desire to affect the executive's reputation can offset the distortions caused by her desire to enhance her own. Our results provide a new rationale for divided government, as partisan considerations are often necessary to prevent the overseer from rubber stamping all executive proposals.     

Industrial policy in an imperfect world

We study industrial policy and its effectiveness in a model with both market and government failures. We introduce a public agency responsible for industrial policy into the model of Hausmann and Rodrik [Hausmann, R., Rodrik, D., 2003. Development as Self-Discovery. Journal of Development Economics 72, 603–633], and we assume that this agency has limited information and political motives. In an extension, we further allow entrepreneurs to engage in rent seeking activities. We find that industrial policies are ineffective if the public agency is poorly informed, but not necessarily so if it is highly politically motivated. Given a politically motivated public agency, industrial policies are effective if and only if the institutional setting ensures that such policies are modest, e.g. by restricting the agency's budget. Moreover, our model helps us to understand why the same industrial policies that have failed elsewhere have been relatively successful in South Korea and Taiwan.