Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:37:25.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Solutions to Market Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Kenneth A. Shepsle  and
Barry R. Weingast
Kenneth A. Shepsle
Affiliation:
Washington University
Barry R. Weingast
Affiliation:
Washington University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For some, market failures serve as a rationale for public intervention. However, the fact that self-interested market behavior does not always produce felicitous social consequences is not sufficient reason to draw this conclusion. It is necessary to assess public performance under comparable conditions, and hence to analyze self-interested political behavior in the institutional structures of the public sector. Our approach emphasizes this institutional structure—warts and all—and thereby provides specific cautionary warnings about optimistic reliance on political institutions to improve upon market performance.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 417 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aranson, P. H.The uncertain search for regulatory reform, unpublished, 1980.Google Scholar
Aranson, P. H., & Ordeshook, P. C.A prolegomenon to a theory of the failure of representative democracy. In Auster, R. & Sears, B. (Eds.). American reevolution papers and proceedings, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977, 23–47. (a)Google Scholar
Aranson, P. H., & Ordeshook, P. C. Incrementalism, the fiscal illusion and the growth of government in representative democracies. Delivered at the Fourth Interlaken Seminar on Analysis and Ideology, Interlaken, Switzerland, 1977. (b)Google Scholar
Aranson, P. H., & Ordeshook, P. C. The political bases of public sector growth in a representative democracy. Delivered at the Conference on the Causes and Consequences of Public Sector Growth, Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, 1978.Google Scholar
Aranson, P. H., Bruff, H. H., & Gellhorn, E. The legislative creation of legislators. Delivered at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Denver, 1982.Google Scholar
Bator, F. M.The anatomy of market failure. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1958, 72, 351–379.Google Scholar
Baumol, W. J.Welfare economics and the theory of the state (2nd rev. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Black, D.The theory of committees and elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Buchanan, J. M.Public finance in democratic process. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Buchanan, J. M.What should economists do? Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Buchanan, J. M., & Brennan, G.The power to tax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Cain, B. E., Ferejohn, J. A., & Fiorina, M. P.The house is not a home: British MPs in their constituencies. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1979, 4, 501–524.Google Scholar
Cohen, L.Cyclic sets in multidimensional voting models. Journal of Economic Theory, 1979, 20, 1–12.Google Scholar
Cox, G., McCubbins, M., & Sullivan, T.Policy and constituency: Reelection incentives and the choice of policy intervention. Unpublished, University of Texas, Austin, 1983.Google Scholar
Denzau, A. T., & Mackay, R. J.The gate keeping and monopoly power of committees: An analysis of sincere and sophisticated behavior. American Journal of Political Science, 1983, 27, 740–762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denzau, A. T., & Munger, M. C.Legislators and interest groups: How unorganized interests get represented. Working Paper No. 81, Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, 1983.Google Scholar
Fenno, R. F.Home style. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P.Representatives, roll calls, and constituencies. Boston: Lexington Books, 1974.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P. Legislative facilitation of government growth: Universalism and reciprocity practices in majority rule institutions. Presented at the Conference on the Causes and Consequences of Public Sector Growth, Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, 1978.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P.Legislative choice of regulatory forms: Legal process or administrative process? Public Choice, 1982, 39, 33–66.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P.Some observations on policy-relevant models of legislative decision making. Presented at Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1983.Google Scholar
Head, J. G.Public goods and public policy. Public Finance, 1962, 17, 197–219.Google Scholar
Lowi, T.The end of liberalism (2nd ed.). New York: Norton, 1969.Google Scholar
Matthews, S.A simple directional model of electoral competition. Public Choice, 1979, 34, 141–156.Google Scholar
Mayhew, D.Congress: The electoral connection. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
McKelvey, R. D.General conditions for global intransivities in formal voting models. Econometrica, 1919, 47, 1085–1111.Google Scholar
McKelvey, R. D.Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models. Journal of Economic Theory, 1976, 12, 472–482.Google Scholar
Miller, G. J., & Moe, T. M.Bureaucrats, legislators, and the size of government. American Political Science Review, 1983, 77, 297–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, W. C. The anatomy of public failure: A public choice perspective. Original Paper 13. Los Angeles: International Institute for Economic Research, 1978.Google Scholar
Musgrave, R. A.The Leviathan cometh, or does he? In Ladd, H. F. & Tideman, T. N. (Eds.). Tax and expenditure limitations. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1981, pp. 77–121.Google Scholar
Niskanen, W. A.Bureaucracy and representative government. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971.Google Scholar
Olson, M.The logic of collective action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Olson, M.The rise and decline of nations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Peltzman, S.Toward a more general theory of regulation. Journal of Law and Economics, 1976, 19, 211–240.Google Scholar
Plott, C. R.The notion of equilibrium and its possibility under majority rule. American Economic Review, 1967, 57, 787–806.Google Scholar
Plott, C. R., & Levine, M. E.A model of agenda influence on committee decisions. American Economic Review, 1979, 68, 146–160.Google Scholar
Riker, W. H.Implications from the disequilibrium of majority rule for the study of institutions. American Political Science Review, 1980, 74, 432–447.Google Scholar
Romer, T., & Rosenthal, H.Political resource allocation, controlled agenda, and the status quo. Public Choice, 1978, 33, 27–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A.The pure theory of public expenditure. Review of Economics and Statistics, 1954, 36, 387–389.Google Scholar
Schofield, N.Instability of simple dynamic games. Review of Economic Studies, 1978, 45, 575–594.Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A.The giant jigsaw puzzle: Democratic committee assignments in the modern house. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A.Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models. American Journal of Political Science, 1979, 25, 27–59.Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A.The private use of the public interest (with apologies to Charles L. Schultze). Society, 1980, 17, 35–42.Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A., & Weingast, B. R.Political preferences for the pork barrel: A generalization. American Journal of Political Science, 1981, 25, 96–112. (a)Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A., & Weingast, B. R.Structure-induced equilibrium and legislative choice. Public Choice, 1981, 36, 221–237. (b)Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A., & Weingast, B. R.Structure and strategy: The two faces of agenda power. Delivered at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 1981. (c)Google Scholar
Shepsle, K. A., & Weingast, B. R.Uncovered sets and sophisticated voting outcomes with implications for agenda institutions. American Journal of Political Science, 1984, 28, 49–75.Google Scholar
Slutsky, S.Equilibrium under α-majority voting. Econometrica, 1919, 47, 1113–1125.Google Scholar
Stigler, G. J.The theory of economic regulation. Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 1971, 2, 3–21.Google Scholar
Stigler, G. J.The citizen and the state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Wagner, R. E.Revenue structure, fiscal illusion, and budgetary choice. Public Choice, 1976, 25, 45–61.Google Scholar
Weidenbaum, M. L. The impacts of government regulation. Prepared for the Joint Economic Committee, Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Stabilization, U.S. Congress, 1978. (Issued as Working Paper Number 32, Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis), 1978.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R.A rational choice perspective on congressional norms. American Journal of Political Science, 1979, 24, 245–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weingast, B. R., Shepsle, K. A., & Johnsen, C.The political economy of benefits and costs: A neoclassical approach to the politics of distribution. Journal of Political Economy, 1981, 89, 642–664.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R., & Moran, M. J.Bureaucratic discretion or congressional control: Regulatory policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission. Journal of Political Economy, 1983, 91, 765–801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, W.Congressional government. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885.Google Scholar
Wolf, C. Jr.The theory of nonmarket failure: Framework for implementation analysis. Journal of Law and Economics, 1979, 107–139.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.