Political Institutions, Government Spending and Economic Growth

本研究考察了1)政治制度——定义为民主、专制和官僚——是否影响政府的总经济规模，以及2)政府规模是否对经济绩效有影响，以增长、消费、投资、通货膨胀和人口动态来衡量。不同类型的民主制度，主要是议会制和总统制的影响，也加以区分，重点放在政府的目标和他们在不同的政治制度下所面临的问责机制。关于政府规模和经济绩效的实证预测来自于一个正式的模型。利用1950年至1990年间139个国家的数据，通过估算现任者因经济表现不佳而下台的概率，以及估算政府规模与经济表现之间的关系方程，对这些预测进行了检验。考虑到制度对经济表现的内生影响，对每种类型的政治制度分别进行了分析。该项目将阐明政治体制对政府责任及其经济行为的影响。特别是，它将评估民主是否能比不同类型的独裁产生更好的经济政策和更好的表现，以及不同的民主制度是否会影响政策和表现。这些结果对制度工程问题产生了直接影响，尤其适用于新兴民主国家。＊＊＊

9507648 Przeworksi This research investigation examines 1) whether political regimes--defined as democracy, autocracy, and bureaucracy--affect the aggregate economic size of governments, and 2) whether government size has consequences for economic performance, measured in terms of growth, consumption, investment, inflation, and population dynamics. The impact of different types of democratic institutions, mainly parliamentarism and presidentialism, is also distinguished The emphasis is placed on the objectives of governments and the mechanisms of accountability they face under different political institutions. Empirical predictions concerning the size of government and economic performance are derived from a formal model. These predictions are tested, using data for 139 countries between 1950 and 1990, by estimating the probability that incumbents lose office as a result of bad economic performance and by estimating equations which relate government size to economic performance. The analysis is conducted separately for each type of political institution, taking account of the fact that regimes are endogenous with regard to economic performance. The project will elucidate the impact of political institutions on the accountability of governments and on their economic behavior. In particular, it will assess whether democracy can be expected to generate better economic policies and better performance than different types of dictatorship and whether different democratic institutions affect policies and performance. These results have direct consequences for issues of institutional engineering, particularly applicable to new democracies. ***