Endogenous Presidentialism

James Robinson and Ragnar Torvik

No 14603, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We develop a model to understand the incidence of presidential and parliamentary institutions. Our analysis is predicated on two ideas: first, that minorities are relatively powerful in a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system, and second, that presidents have more power with respect to their own coalition than prime ministers do. These assumptions imply that while presidentialism has separation of powers, it does not necessarily have more checks and balances than parliamentarism. We show that presidentialism implies greater rent extraction and lower provision of public goods than parliamentarism. Moreover, political leaders who prefer presidentialism may be supported by their own coalition if they fear losing agenda setting power to another group. We argue that the model is consistent with a great deal of qualitative information about presidentialism in Africa and Latin America.

JEL-codes: H1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
Note: POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published as James A. Robinson & Ragnar Torvik, 2016. "ENDOGENOUS PRESIDENTIALISM," Journal of the European Economic Association, vol 14(4), pages 907-942.

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Journal Article: ENDOGENOUS PRESIDENTIALISM (2016)
Journal Article: Endogenous Presidentialism (2016)
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