Political Competition and the Study of Public Economics

Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Political Competition and the Study of Public Economics
	Contents
	1 Political Economy in the Study of Public Policy
		1.1 A Brief Outline
		1.2 Limiting the Scope of Our Inquiry
	2 Thinking Generally about Economic and Political Competition
		2.1 Approaches to the Nature of Political Competition: Objectives, Process, and Location
		2.2 A Prelude: Contrasting Elements in the Study of Economics and Politics
			2.2.1 Consumers versus Voters
			2.2.2 Firms versus Parties
			2.2.3 Markets versus Elections
	3 Electoral Competition and Economic Welfare
		3.1 What Standard of Reference?
		3.2 A First Theorem for Competitive Political Economies
			3.2.1 A Representation Theorem
			3.2.2 Some Implications of an Equilibrium Framework for Policy Analysis
				Efficient Redistribution and the Identification of Inefficient Policies
				A Challenge for Second-Best Analysis
				Political Feasibility in Policy Design and Advocacy
			3.2.3 Political Feasibility, Tectonic Policies and Schumpeterian Competition
	4 What Can Go Wrong?
		4.1 Problems Due to the Behavior of Voters
		4.2 Problems Due to the Nature of Political Parties
		4.3 Problems Due to the Differences between Markets and Elections
			4.3.1 International Competition
			4.3.2 Special Interest Politics
			4.3.3 The Common Pool Problem
				Decentralization, Yardstick Competition, and Foot Voting
	5 Fiscal Structure
		5.1 Tax Structure as a Sorting Equilibrium
		5.2 Dealing with Complexity
	6 Political Competitiveness
		6.1 Measures of Competitiveness
			6.1.1 Competitiveness as Unpredictability or Closeness
			6.1.2 Competitiveness and the Asymmetry of Safe Seats
			6.1.3 Competitiveness as the Incumbent’s Probability of Loss
			6.1.4 Contestability
			6.1.5 Responsiveness
			6.1.6 Measuring Competitiveness between Elections
		6.2 Does It Matter?
			6.2.1 Swing Voters and Economic Growth
			6.2.2 Implications for Government Size and Procurement Efficiency
			6.2.3 Political Competition and the Business Cycle
			6.2.4 Competitiveness and the Private/Public Composition of the Public Expenditure
				A Last Comment
	7 Conclusion
Appendix: Further Issues Concerning Behavior, Equilibrium, and the Degree of Competition
References
Acknowledgments