Comparative Political Economy

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

This research program focuses on the development of comparative theories of public policy from a political economy perspective where policies are chosen within institu-tions embedded in a political system. The principal comparisons are between presidential and parliamentary systems and between public and private politics and institutions. The policy focus is on the influence of organized and unorganized interests on choices by public and private officeholders. In the context of public politics, interests attempt to influence both the choice of government and government in office. In private politics. activist and interest groups attempt to affect economic activity without reliance on public institutions by pressuring firms to change their practices, such as environmental protection policies or working conditions in factories in developing countries. The research program has three principal components. The first is a comparative study of parliamentary and presidential systems with an emphasis on the dynamics of policy choice. The model of parliamentary systems includes a proportional representation electoral system, government formation, and policy choice. The model of a presidential system includes a geography-based electoral system and a legislature with supermajority features arising from a presidential veto override and a legislative supermajority, as in the case of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. One objective is to incorporate political parties as reputation carriers in these institutional settings. The principal focus is on the stability of governments and their policy responsiveness to economic shocks. The second component is the study of the influence of interest groups on the policies chosen in political systems. The research generalizes existing common agency and vote buying theories to incorporate forms of influence in addition to contributions; e.g., the grassroots mobilization of constituents. This interest group theory is then related to the first component of the research program by studying constituency and interest group influence in proportional representation and geography-based representation systems. This incorporates influence both on the choice of government and government in office. The third component of this research is on private politics; e.g., pressure applied directly to firms by activist groups seeking to change the practices of those firms. This pressure may take the form of an organized consumer boycott or public exposure of practices such as the working conditions in overseas factories. The game of private politics includes firms and activists as players, and the equilibrium can correspond to the establishment of a private institution to mitigate commitment, coordination, information, and free-rider problems. The research on endogenous private institutions is extended to the private law of firms that organize electronic markets.