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Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive
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Dewan, Torun, Galeotti, Andrea, Ghiglino, Christian and Squintani, Francesco (2011) Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive. In: Invited Speaker : Political Economy Seminar, Department of Economics, Stanford University, 27 Sep 2011 (Unpublished)
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Official URL: http://economics.stanford.edu/files/Squintani9_27....
Abstract
The study of legislative-executive relations in Parliamentary democracies has been largely neglected by formal theorists. Our model accounts for key features of these relations: decision-making authority is assigned to individual ministers; the parliamentary majority provides support for this assignment; and the parliament debates policy. We model the cabinet as a form of public communication – a meeting place at a designated time and place–between ministers. By contrast, private conversations between backbenchers and ministers are typical of ‘ministerial government’. Supposing that politicians’ private information is relevant for all policies —the ‘common state’ case –we show that cabinet meetings Pareto dominate private conversations. In large governments, authority should be concentrated to the most moderate politicians. In numerical simulations describing smaller governments, we find that a single leader should be assigned a large share of decisions. Turning to the case in which politicians have policy specific expertise, surprisingly, we find that the optimal executive structure is no less centralized than in the common-state case. Our results recover stylized facts–ideologically diverse parliaments and centralized executive control–of parliamentary governance first analyzed with respect to political development in Victorian England.
Item Type: | Conference Item (Paper) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Official Date: | 27 September 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Version or Related Resource: | Dewan, Torun, et al. (2011). Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive. In: Invited Speaker : Microeconomics Research Workshop, European University Institute. Florence, Italy, 08 Mar 2011. Dewan, Torun, et al. (2011). Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive. In: Invited Speaker : Seminar on Positive Political Economy, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA, 07 April 2011. Dewan, Torun, et al. (2011). Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive. In: Princeton University Conference on Political Agency and Institutions. Princeton, New Jersey, 08-09 April 2011. Dewan, Torun, et al. (2011). Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive. In: Invited Speaker : Political Economy Seminar. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, 26 Sep 2011. | ||||
Conference Paper Type: | Paper | ||||
Title of Event: | Invited Speaker : Political Economy Seminar | ||||
Type of Event: | Other | ||||
Location of Event: | Department of Economics, Stanford University | ||||
Date(s) of Event: | 27 Sep 2011 | ||||
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