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Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Comparative Politics and Public Finance

Author(s): Torsten Persson, G�rard Roland and Guido Tabellini

Publication Date: November 1997

Keyword(s): comparative politics, electoral accountability, legislative cohesion, political economics, Public Finance and Separation of Powers

Programme Area(s): International Macroeconomics

Abstract: This paper presents a model of electoral accountability to compare the public finance outcomes under a presidential-congressional and a parliamentary system. In a presidential-congressional system, contrary to a parliamentary system, there are no endogenous incentives for legislative cohesion, but this allows for a clearer separation of powers. These features lead to clear differences in the public finance performance of the two systems. A parliamentary system has redistribution towards a majority, less underprovision of public goods, more waste and a higher burden of taxation, whereas a presidential-congressional system has redistribution towards a minority, more underprovision of public goods, but less waste and a smaller size of government.

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Bibliographic Reference

Persson, T, Roland, G and Tabellini, G. 1997. 'Comparative Politics and Public Finance'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1737