The Economic Effects of Constitutions

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262661928
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (619 download)

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Book Synopsis The Economic Effects of Constitutions by : Torsten Persson

Download or read book The Economic Effects of Constitutions written by Torsten Persson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005-01-14 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors of The Economic Effects of Constitutions use econometric tools to study what they call the "missing link" between constitutional systems and economic policy; the book is an uncompromisingly empirical sequel to their previous theoretical analysis of economic policy. Taking recent theoretical work as a point of departure, they ask which theoretical findings are supported and which are contradicted by the facts. The results are based on comparisons of political institutions across countries or time, in a large sample of contemporary democracies. They find that presidential/parliamentary and majoritarian/proportional dichotomies influence several economic variables: presidential regimes induce smaller public sectors, and proportional elections lead to greater and less targeted government spending and larger budget deficits. Moreover, the details of the electoral system (such as district magnitude and ballot structure) influence corruption and structural policies toward economic growth.Persson and Tabellini's goal is to draw conclusions about the causal effects of constitutions on policy outcomes. But since constitutions are not randomly assigned to countries, how the constitutional system was selected in the first place must be taken into account. This raises challenging methodological problems, which are addressed in the book. The study is therefore important not only in its findings but also in establishing a methodology for empirical analysis in the field of comparative politics.

The Constitution and Economic Regulation

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781351298322
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (983 download)

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Book Synopsis The Constitution and Economic Regulation by : Michael Conant

Download or read book The Constitution and Economic Regulation written by Michael Conant and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This study uses basic economic analysis as a technique to comment critically on the original meaning and the interpretation of those clauses of the Constitution that have particular bearing on the economy. Many new conclusions are markedly different from those of the Supreme Court and earlier commentators. Conant's view is that the commerce clause and the equal protection clause, if they had been construed consistently with their comprehensive original meanings, would have given much greater federal protection against state laws that impaire free markets.Economic policy for the nation was vested in Congress. To the extent that special interests could buy congressional favor for their anticompetitive activities, free markets were impaired within constraints as interpreted by the court. These decisions have been criticized for their failure to incorporate the antimonopoly tradition in the Ninth Amendment and their failure to recognize equal protection of laws incorporated into the Fifth Amendment. Conant holds that statutory controls of the economy are justifiable in economic theory if they are designed to remedy market failures and thereby increase efficiency. If statutes are passed to interfere with markets and create market inefficiencies for the benefit of special interest groups, they should be condemned under the standards of normative microeconomics. There are four main classes of market failure: monopoly, externalities, public goods, and informational asymmetry. This masterful analysis examines all four reasons for market failure in depth.Litigation costs are analogous to transaction costs. If legal principles and rules are clearly and precisely defined by the Supreme Court when they are first appealed, litigation and its costs should be minimized. Conant claims that if legal principles or rules are uncertain because they lack definable standards, the number of legal actions filed and litigation costs will be much greater. This promotes additional litigation challenging the many statutes enacted to remedy asserted market failures in an expanding industrial economy. This work brilliantly addresses the danger to the economy in court rulings seeking to legislate standards of reasonableness."--Provided by publisher.