Economic Reform and Dynamic Political Constraints
Economic Reform and Dynamic Political Constraints
复制标题
经济改革和动态政治约束
DOI：
10.2307/2297994
复制
发表时间：
1992
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
G. Roland
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Dewatripont;G. Roland
在这篇文章中，我们考察了政治约束对经济改革计划的影响，特别是从中央计划经济向市场经济的过渡。我们分析了一个制定议程、具有改革意识的政府面对的官僚机构或工业部门的问题，对这些机构或工业部门的分配效率需要裁员和增加工作强度。政府还试图最大限度地减少向其不同种族的工作人员提供的租金。我们考察了两种类型的政治约束：一致规则和多数规则，这两种规则都是在一个阶段和两个阶段的视界内进行的。主要结果如下。首先，我们展示了逆向选择和时间一致性如何产生被广泛观察到的渐进主义特征，作为最优改革的一个组成部分。其次，根据多数原则，政府有可能获得多数票通过一项间歇性损害多数利益的改革方案。事实上，政府可以通过策略性地使用未来建议的威胁来改善租金征收：预计明天将成为少数派的团体可以接受优惠，而其选票可以用来向另一团体征收租金。这些结果表明，在一个动态的背景下，民主制约不应被高估为阻碍提高效率的经济改革的障碍。这篇论文的结果可能会对当前东欧改革的政治经济学有所启发。
In this paper, we examine the impact of political constraints on economic reform plans, with special reference to the transition from centrally planned to market economies. We analyse the problem of an agenda-setting reform-minded Government facing a bureaucracy or industrial sector for which allocative efficiency requires redundancies and an increase in work intensity. The Government also tries to minimize the rents conceded to its heterogeneous workforce. We examine two types of political constraints: unanimity rule and majority rule, both in a one-period and a two-period horizon. The main results are the following. First of all, we show how adverse selection and time-consistency may generate the widely-observed feature of gradualism as an ingredient of an optimal reform. Second, under a majority rule, it is shown to be possible for the Government to obtain a majority vote for a reform scheme that intertemporally hurts majority interests. Indeed, the Government can improve rent extraction through the strategic use of the threat of future proposals: the group which expects to be in the minority tomorrow may accept concessions, while its votes can be used to extract rents from another group. These results suggest that, in a dynamic context, democratic constraints should not be overestimated as an obstacle against efficiency-enhancing economic reforms. The results of this paper may throw some light on the political economy of current reforms in Eastern Europe.