Universalism and the Value of Political Power

While legislatures typically use majority rule to allocate a budget in distributive legislation, near-unanimous consent over the broad allocation of benefits is pervasive. I develop a game-theoretic model where players strategically interact in a universal coalition to determine allocations, with no...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: KOH, Yumi
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2035
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/3034/viewcontent/universalism_aug2017.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:While legislatures typically use majority rule to allocate a budget in distributive legislation, near-unanimous consent over the broad allocation of benefits is pervasive. I develop a game-theoretic model where players strategically interact in a universal coalition to determine allocations, with non-cooperative bargaining as a threat point for the breakdown of cooperation. To quantify the effects of political power and actual needs on the agreed-upon allocation, I structurally estimate the model using the "Bridge Bill Capital Budget" in 1992. I find that 9.58% of the budget would be allocated differently if allocations were determined only based on actual needs.