Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions
Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions
复制标题
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.888187
复制
发表时间：
2006-02
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
D. Acemoglu;James A. Robinson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D. Acemoglu;James A. Robinson
我们构建了一个模型，同时在制度的变化和持久性。该模型由拥有土地的精英和工人组成，关键的经济决策涉及调节劳动力交易的经济制度的形式（例如，竞争性市场与劳动力压制）。其主要思想是，均衡的经济制度是法律上和事实上的政治权力行使的结果。政治制度的改变，例如从非民主到民主的转变，改变了法律上的政治权力的分配，但精英可以加强他们对事实上的政治权力的投资，例如游说或使用准军事部队，以部分或全部抵消他们失去的法律权力。在基线模型中，政治制度的均衡变化对经济制度的（随机）均衡分布没有影响，导致均衡制度的一种特殊形式的持续性，我们称之为不变性。当模型被丰富到允许限制民主精英行使事实上的权力或改变经济制度的成本时，均衡的形式是具有国家依赖性的马尔可夫政权转换过程。最后，当我们考虑到改变政治制度比改变经济制度更困难的可能性时，这种模式导致了一种被俘获的民主模式，即民主政权可以生存，但选择有利于精英的经济制度。该模型中的主要思想是用美国南部、拉丁美洲和利比里亚的历史例子来说明的。
We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The main idea is that equilibrium economic institutions are a result of the exercise of de jure and de facto political power. A change in political institutions, for example a move from nondemocracy to democracy, alters the distribution of de jure political power, but the elite can intensify their investments in de facto political power, such as lobbying or the use of paramilitary forces, to partially or fully offset their loss of de jure power. In the baseline model, equilibrium changes in political institutions have no effect on the (stochastic) equilibrium distribution of economic institutions, leading to a particular form of persistence in equilibrium institutions, which we refer to as invariance. When the model is enriched to allow for limits on the exercise of de facto power by the elite in democracy or for costs of changing economic institutions, the equilibrium takes the form of a Markov regime-switching process with state dependence. Finally, when we allow for the possibility that changing political institutions is more difficult than altering economic institutions, the model leads to a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive, but choose economic institutions favoring the elite. The main ideas featuring in the model are illustrated using historical examples from the U.S. South, Latin America and Liberia.