Institution design and public good provision: an experimental study of the vote of confidence procedure

Parliamentary democracies use the vote of confidence procedure, which links the survival of a government with that of a bill, in order to discipline members of the majority. In this paper I investigate the role that the vote of confidence procedure has on public good provision and show that it has u...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental economics : a journal of the Economic Science Association 2015-12, Vol.18 (4), p.697-717
Main Author: Tergiman, Chloe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appropriations
Bargaining
Behavioral/Experimental Economics
Bills
Budgets
Coalition governments
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
Economics
Economics and Finance
Game Theory
Government spending
Laboratories
Leadership
Legislatures
Microeconomics
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Original Paper
Public good
Social and Behav. Sciences
Studies
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Summary:Parliamentary democracies use the vote of confidence procedure, which links the survival of a government with that of a bill, in order to discipline members of the majority. In this paper I investigate the role that the vote of confidence procedure has on public good provision and show that it has unintended negative consequences: even when efficient, public goods may be turned down in favor of earmarked projects. I use a laboratory experiment to test my model and show that the increase in voting cohesion comes at the cost of a 23 % reduction in public good provision and more unequal earmarking.
ISSN:1386-4157
1573-6938
DOI:10.1007/s10683-014-9423-y