The Costs and Benefits of a Separation of Powers—An Incomplete Contracts Approach

The separation of the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers is a key principle in most democratic constitutions. We analyze the costs and benefits of separating legislature and executive in an incomplete contracts model: the executive can decide to implement public projects. Under separation...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:American law and economics review 2011-03, Vol.13 (1), p.131-167
Main Authors: Fuchs, Kira, Herold, Florian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Economic legislation
Economic models
Executive branch
Incomplete contracts
Political economy
Political power
Privacy rights
Public projects
Separation of powers
Welfare legislation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The separation of the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers is a key principle in most democratic constitutions. We analyze the costs and benefits of separating legislature and executive in an incomplete contracts model: the executive can decide to implement public projects. Under separation of powers, the legislature sets up a decision-making framework that leaves the executive with the residual decision-making rights. Separation of powers is the more beneficial, the larger the danger of extreme policy preferences of the residual political decision maker.
ISSN:1465-7252
1465-7260
DOI:10.1093/aler/ahq016