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Koh, Yumi

Universalism and the value of political power. (English) Zbl 1417.91296

Int. Econ. Rev. 59, No. 3, 1375-1402 (2018).
Summary: Although legislatures typically use majority rule to allocate a budget in distributive legislation, unanimous consent over the broad allocation of benefits is pervasive. I develop a game-theoretic model where members strategically interact in a universal coalition to determine allocations, with noncooperative bargaining as a threat point for the breakdown of cooperation. To quantify the effects of political power on the agreed-upon allocation, I structurally estimate the model using the “bridge bill capital budget” in 1992. I find that 16.73% of the budget would be allocated differently if allocations were determined only based on actual needs.

Cited in 1 Document

MSC:

91B32 Resource and cost allocation (including fair division, apportionment, etc.)
91A10 Noncooperative games
91F10 History, political science

Keywords:

budget allocation; majority rule; distributive legislation; game-theoretic model; noncooperative bargaining
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References:

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