Political Institutions and Economic Policy

这是一个涉及经济学、历史学和政治学的跨学科项目。它整合了这些学科的研究，以了解与民主政府和政治机构运作有关的一些基本问题。更确切地说，所讨论的问题涉及投票权(选举权)的作用和政治制度的透明度。投票权的范围是政治制度的主要特征之一。它在很大程度上决定了政治制度可以被认为是民主的程度，并影响到政府活动的规模和范围。在第一次世界大战之前的一个世纪里，特许经营权在西方发生了戏剧性的变化，这样的变化能解释本世纪政府角色的一些转变吗？该项目考虑了这个问题，并询问选民非常有限的国家(19世纪初的大多数国家)是如何向更多的公民群体提供投票权的。最近的模型将这种民主化解释为精英和被剥夺选举权的人之间冲突的结果。这个项目探索了另一种解释的力量。在某些情况下，由于选举权的扩大而导致的政治竞争模式的转变，超过了对精英阶层影响力的稀释的补偿。这一理论被用来解释英国“改革时代”的某些方面，包括地方公共产品支出的大幅增加。这项研究将使我们更广泛地理解选举权是如何从精英阶层扩展到充分民主参与的。这是宪政设计和政治学发展的根本问题。此外，从这项研究中获得的见解可能适用于欧盟扩大的问题。政治制度的透明度是民主政府的另一个重要因素，因为有关政策的信息对选民产生影响至关重要。如果选民不完全了解政府政策，对政府债务、政府规模、政府向选民转移的形式以及政府政策的效率(无效)会产生什么后果？分析的新颖之处在于信息不完全的表现形式。缺乏透明度导致了政府债务和低效率的税收。如果再分配工具的透明度较低，还会导致选择效率低下的再分配工具。该模式还建议解决“财政搅动”难题，即大量个人既是纳税人，又是政府转移支付的接受者。财政搅动是低效的，因为“净出”这些个人的财政状况往往更为有效。该模型为这一现象提供了一种解释，并指出了一种改革财政机构以改善政治制度运行的方法。研究透明度和债务之间的关系可能会对政策产生影响，特别是如果更高的透明度可以意味着减少公共债务。

This is an interdisciplinary project at the intersection of economics, history, and political science. It integrates research from these disciplines to understand some fundamental issues concerning democratic government and the functioning of political institutions. More precisely, the issues that are addressed concern the role of the right to vote (the franchise) and the transparency of political institutions.The extent of the franchise is one of the key features of a political system. It largely determines the degree to which political system can be considered democratic and it affects the scale and scope of government activity. The franchise changed dramatically in the West in the century preceding World War I. Can such changes account for some of the transformations in the role of government during this century? The project considers this question and asks how it came to happen that countries with very narrow electorates (most countries at the beginning of the 19th century) offered the right to vote to a much larger group of citizens. Recent models have interpreted this democratization as the outcome of conflict between elites and the disenfranchised. This project explores the power of an alternative explanation. Under some circumstances, the shift in the mode of political competition caused by the extension of the franchise more than compensates the elite for the dilution of their influence. The theory is used to interpret some aspects of the British ``Age of Reform'' that include a major increase in spending on local public goods The research will have broader on our understanding of how the franchise is extended from elites to full democratic participation. This is a fundamental issue for constitutional design and political science development. Additionally, the insights gained from this research could be applicable to the issue of the European Union expansion. The transparency of the political system is another important element of democratic government since information about policy is essential for voters to have an influence. If voters are imperfectly informed on government policy, what are the consequences for government debt, the size of government, the form of government transfers to voters, and the (in)efficiency of government policy? The novel feature of the analysis is the form of information imperfection. The lack of transparency leads to government debt and to inefficient taxation. It also leads to the choice of inefficient instruments of redistribution if such instruments are less transparent. The model also suggests a resolution of the `fiscal churning' puzzle, namely, the fact that a large number of individuals are both taxpayers and recipients of government transfers. Fiscal churning is inefficient because it would often be more effective to `net out' the fiscal positions of such individuals. The model offers an explanation for this phenomenon and points to a way to reform fiscal institutions to improve the functioning of the political system. A study of the relationship between transparency and debt could have policy impacts, particularly if greater transparency can imply a reduction in the public debt.