Readings on Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy
(with emphasis on theory-based empirical work)

Abrams, B. and W. Dougan. 1986. “The Effects of Constitutional Restrains on Government Spending.” Public Choice 49: 101–16.

Acemoglu, D. and J. A. RObinson (2001) A Theory of Political Transitions. American Economic Review 91:938-63.

Alesina, A. and G. Tabellini. 1987. “Rules and discretion with noncoordinated monetary and fiscal policy.” Economic Inquiry 25: 619–30.

——— . 1990. “A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt.” The Review of Economic Studies 57: 403–14.

Alesina, A. and H. Rosenthal. (1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Anderson, G., D. T. Martin, W. F. Shughart, and R. D. Tollison. 1990. “Behind the Veil: The Political Economy of Constitutional Change” in W. M. Crain and R. D. Tollison, eds. Predicting Politics: Essays in Empirical Public Choice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Aristotle. 150 BC/1962. The Politics. Translated by T. A. Sinclair. New York: Penguin.

Arrow, K. 1951. Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley.

Austen-Smith, D. 1987. “Interest Groups, Campaign Contributions, and Probabilistic Voting.” Public Choice 54: 296–321.

Baldwin, R. 1982. “The Political Economy of Protectionism.” Import Competition and Response. J. N. Bhagwati, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Banaian, K., L. O. Laney, and T. D. Willett. 1983. “Central Bank Independence: An International Comparison.” Economic Review. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. March: 1–13.

Barnett, W. A., M. J. Hinich, and N. J. Schofield, eds. 1993. Political Economy: Institutions, Competition, and Representation: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Becker, G. S. 1983. “A Theory of Competition among Pressure Groups for Political Influence.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 98: 371–400.

Beghin, J. C. and M. Kherallah. 1994. “Political Institutions and International Patterns of Agricultural Protection.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 76: 482–89.

Berman, H. J. 2003. Law and Revolution II. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Besley T. and A. Case. 2003. “Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States.” Journal of Economic Literature 61: 7–73.

Besley, T. and S. Coate. 1995. “Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition.” The American Economic Review 85: 25–45.

———. 1997. “An Economic Model of Representative Democracy.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 88: 139–56.

Black, D. 1948. “On the Rationale of Group Decision-Making.” Journal of Political Economy 56: 23–34.

———. “The Decisions of a Committee Using a Special Majority.” Econometrica 16: 245–61.

Boardman, A. and A. R. Vining 1989. “Ownership and Perfomance in Competitive Environnments : A Comparison of the Performance of Private, Mixed, and State-Owned Enterprises.” Journal of Law and Economics 32: 1-33.

Borda, J. C. 1781. “Mémoire sur les Elections au Scrutin.” Histoire de l’Academie Royale des Sciences. Paris.

Brennan, G. and A. Hamlin. 2000. Democratic Devices and Desires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brennan, G. and J. M. Buchanan. 1980. The Power to Tax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Breton, A. 1974. The Economic Theory of Representative Government. Chicago: Aldine.

Breton, A. and R. Wintrobe. 1975. “The Equilibrium Size of a Budget-Maximizing Bureau.” Journal of Political Economy 83: 195–207.

Browning, E. 1975. “Why the Social Insurance Budget Is Too Large in a Democracy.” Economic Inquiry 22: 373–88.

Buchanan, J. M. and G. Tullock. 1962. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Buchanan, J. M. and R. D. Congleton. 1998. Politics by Principle Not Interest: Toward Nondiscriminatory Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Buchanan, J. M. and R. Wagner. Democracy in Deficit. New York: Academic Press. 1977.

Carter, J. R. and D. Schap. 1990. “Line-Item Veto: Where Is Thy Sting?” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 4: 103–18

Condorcet, Marquis de. 1785. Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions redues a la plu alite des voix. Paris: L’Imprimerie Royale.

Congleton, R. D. 1989. “Campaign Finances and Political Platforms: the Economics of Political Controversy.” Public Choice 62: 101–18.

———. 2001. “On the Durability of King and Council: The Continuum between Dictatorship and Democracy.” Constitutional Political Economy 12: 193-215.

———. 2003. Improving Democracy through Constitutional Reform. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press.

Congleton, R. D. and W. F. Shughart. 1990. “The Growth of Social Security: Electoral Demand or Political Pull?” Economic Inquiry 28: 109–32.

Cooter, R. 2000. The Strategic Constitution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Coughlin, P., D. C. Mueller, and P. Murrell. 1990. “Electoral Politics, Interest Groups and the Size of Government.” Economic Inquiry 28: 682–705.

Cox, G. 1987. “Electoral Equilibria under Alternative Voting Institutions.” American Journal of Political Science 31: 82–108.

———. 1997. Making Votes Count. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crain, W. M. and J. C. Miller. 1990. “Budget Process and Spending Growth.” William and Mary Law Review 31: 1021–46.

Crain, W. M. and R. D. Tollison. 1979. “Constitutional Change in an Interest Group Perspective,” Journal of Legal Studies 8: 165–175.

Crain, W. M. and A. Zardkoohi 1978. “A Test of the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm: Water Utility Companies in the United States.” Journal of Law and Economics 21:395-408.

Cukierman, A. 1992. Central Bank Strategy, Credibility and Independence: Theory and Evidence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cukierman, A. and A. H. Meltzer. 1986. “A Positive Theory of Discretionary Polity, the Cost of a Democratic Government, and the Benefit of a Constitution.” Economic Inquiry 24: 367–88.

Davies, D. G. 1971. “The Efficiency of Public versus Private Firms: the Case of Australia’s Two Airlines.” Journal of Law and Economics 14: 149–65.

Debreu, G. 1957. Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium. New Haven: Yale University Press.

De Haan, J. and J. E. Sturm 1994. “Political and Institutional Determinants of Fiscal Policy in the European Community.” Public Choice 80: 152-72.

De Haan, J. and J. E. Sturm 1997. “Political and Economic Determinants of OECD Budget Deficits and Government Expenditures: A Reinvestigation.” European Journal of Political Economy 13: 739-750.

De Haan, J. and J. E. Sturm 2003. “Does More Democracy Lead to Greater Economic Freedom? New Evidence for Developing Countries.” European Journal of Political Economy 19: 547-563.

Diermeier, D., H. Eraslan, and A. Merlo. 2002. “Coalition Governments and Comparative Constitutional Design.” European Economic Review 46: 893–907.

Denzau, A. and K. Grier. 1980. “Determinants of Local School Spending: Some Consistent Estimates.” Public Choice 44: 385–83.

Denzau, A. and M. Munger. 1986. “Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented.” American Political Science Review 80: 89–106.

Dixit, A. 1996. The Making of Economic Policy: A Transactions Cost Politics Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dixit, A., G. Grossman, and E. Helpman. 1997. “Common Agency and Coordination, General Theory and Application to Government Policy Making.” Journal of Political Economy 105: 752–69.

Downs, A. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy.” Journal of Political Economy 65: 135–50.

———. 1965. “A Theory of Bureaucracy.” American Economic Review 55: 439–46.

Duverger, M. 1954. Political Parties, Their Organization, and Activity in the Modern State. New York: Wiley.

Finer, S. 1997. The History of Government from the Earliest Times. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ferejohn, J. 1974. Pork Barrel Politics: Rivers and Harbors Legislation, 1947–68. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Frey, B. S. 1994. “The Role of Democracy in Securing Just and Prosperous Societies.” The American Economic Review 84: 338–42.

Frey, B. S. and A. Stutzer. 2000. “Happiness, Economy, and Institutions.” Economic Journal 110: 918–38.

———. 2002. Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Well-being. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gilligan, T. W. and J. G. Matsusaka. 1995. “Deviations from Constituent Interests: The Role of Legislative Structure and Political Parties in the States.” Economic Inquiry 33: 383-401

———. 2001. “Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the 20th Century.” National Tax Journal 54: 57–82.

Glazier, A. 1989. “Politics and the Choice of Durability.” American Economic Review 79: 1207–14.

Gordon, S. 1999. Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Grier, K. 1989. “On the Existence of a Political Monetary Cycle.” American Journal of Political Science 33: 379–89.

Grier, K. B. and G. Tullock. 1989. “An Empirical Analysis of Cross-National Economic Growth, 1951–80.” Journal of Monetary Economics 24: 259–76.

Grossman, G. M. and E. Helpman. 1996. “Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics.” Review of Economic Studies 63: 265–86.

Gwartney J. D., R. A. Lawson, and R. G. Holcombe. 1999. “Economic Freedom and the Environment for Economic Growth.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 155: 643–63.

Hall, P. A. and R. C. R. Taylor. 1996. “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 46: 936–57.

Hammond, T. H. and G. J. Miller. 1987. “The Core of the Constitution.” APSR 81: 1155–74.

Hibbs, D. 1977. “Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy.” American Political Science Review 71: 1467–87.

Hillman, A. L. and H. W. Ursprung. 1988. “Domestic Politics, Foreign Interests, and International Trade Policy.” American Economic Review 78: 719–45.

Holcombe, R. G. 1977. “The Florida System: A Bowen Equilibrium Referendum Process.” National Tax Journal 30: 77–84.

Holcombe, R. G. and A. Zardkoohi. 1981. “The Determinants of Federal Grants.” Southern Economic Journal 48: 393–99.

Holtz-Eakin, D. 1988. “The Line Item Veto and Public Sector Budgets: Evidence from the States.” Journal of Public Economics 36: 269–92.

Inman, R. P. and M. A. Fitts. 1990. “Political Institutions and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from the U. S. Historical Record.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 6: 79–132.

Knack, S. and P. Keefer. 1995. “Institutions and Economic Performance: Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures.” Economic and Politics 7: 207–27.

———. 1997. “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 1251–88.

Kramer, G. H. 1971. “Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896–1964.” American Political Science Review 65: 133–43.

Kruger, A. O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.” American Economic Review 54: 291–303.

Kydland, F. and E. Prescott. 1977. “Rules Rather than Discretion: the Inconsistency of Optimal Plans.” Journal of Political Economy 85: 473–90.

Laffont, J. J. and J. S. Tirole. 1993. A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulatios. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Landes, M. and R. A. Posner. 1975. “The Independent Judiciary in an Interest Group Perspective.” Journal of Law and Economics 18: 875–901.

Laver, M. and K. A. Shepsle. 1996. Making and Breaking Governments: Cabinets and Legislatures in Parliamentary Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lijphart, A. 1990. “The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws 1945–85.” American Political Science Review 84: 481–96.

———. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945–1990. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lipset, S. M. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53: 69–105.

Lott, J. R. and L. W. Kenny. 1999. “Did Women’s Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?” Journal of Political Economy 107: 1163–98.

Luce, R. D. and H. Raiffa. 1957. Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey. New York: Wiley.

Lupia, A. and K. Strom. 1995. “Coalition Termination and the Strategic Timing of Parliamentary Elections.” American Political Science Review 89(3): 648–69.

Matsusaka, John G. 1995. “Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years.” Journal of Political Economy 103: 587–623.

———. 2000. “Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Law and Economics 43: 619–50.

Mclean, I. 1995. Classics of Social Choice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

McCubbins, M. D., R. G. Noll, and B. R. Weingast. 1989. “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.” Journal of Law Economics and Organization 3: 243–77.

Meltzer, A. H. and S. F. Richard. 1981. “A Rational Theory of the Size of Government.” Journal of Political Economy 89: 914–27.

Mesquita, B. B., A. Smith, R. M. Siverson, and R. D. Morrow (2003) The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge Mass: MIT Press.

Mueller, D C. 1996. Constitutional Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

———. 2003. Public Choice III. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mueller, D. C. and T. Stratmann. 2003. “The Economic Effects of Democratic Participation.” Journal of Public Economics 87: 2129–55.

Niskanen, W. A. 1971. Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Chicago: Aldine Press.

Nordhaus, W. D. 1972. “The Political Business Cycle.” Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 333.

North, D. C. 1985. “The Growth of Government in the United States: An Economic Historian’s Perspective.” Journal of Public Economics 28: 383–99.

North, D. C. and B. Weingast. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” Journal of Econmic History 69: 803–32.

Oates, W. 1972. Fiscal Federalism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Olson, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action; Public Goods, and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

———. 1993. “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development.” American Political Science Review 87: 567–76.

Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons : the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Peltzman, S. 1976. “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation.” Journal of Law and Economics 19: 211–40.

———. 1993. “George Stigler’s Contribution to the Economic Analysis of Regulation.” Journal of Political Economy 101: 818–32.

Persson, T. and G. E. Tabellini. 1999. “The Size and Scope of Government.” Comparative Politics with National Politicians.” European Economic Review 43: 699–735.

———. 2000a. “Comparative Politics and Public Finance.” Journal of Political Economy 108: 1121–61.

———. 2000b. Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Persson, T., G. Roland, and G. E. Tabellini. 1997. “Separation of Powers and Political Accountability.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 1163–202.

Piketty, T. 1999. “The Information Aggregation Approach to Political Institutions.” European Economic Review 43: 791–800.

Plott, C. R. 1967. “A Notion of Equilibrium and its Possibility under Majority Rule.” American Economic Review 57: 787–806.

Pommerehne, W. W. 1978. “Institutional Approaches to Public Expenditure: Empirical Evidence from Swiss Municipalities.” Journal of Public Economics 9: 225–80.

———. 1990. “The Empirical Relevance of Comparative Institutional Analysis.” European Economic Review 34: 458–69.

Poole, K. T. and H. Rosenthal. 1991. “Patterns of Congressional Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 35: 228–78.

Posner, R. A. 1975. “The Social Cost of Monopoly and Regulation.” Journal of Political Economy 83: 807–27.

Poterba, J. M. 1996. “Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States.” American Economic Review 86: 395–400.

Powell, G. Bingham. 2000. Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Przeworski A. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Przeworski A. and F. Limongi. 1993. “Political Regimes and Economic Growth.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 7: 51–69.

Rees, A. H., S. Kaufman, J. Eldersveld, and F. Friedel. 1962. “The Effect of Economic Conditions on Congressional Elections 1946–58.” Review of Economics and Statistics 44: 458–65.

Riker, W. H. 1955. “The Senate and American Federalism.” American Political Science Review 49: 452–69.

———. 1982. “The Two-Party System and Duverger’s Law.” American Political Science Review 76: 753–66.

———. 1962. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Rogoff, K. 1985. “The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 100: 1169–90.

Rose-Ackerman, S. 1978. Corruption. New York: Academic Press.

———. 1999. Corruption and Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Salmon, P. 1987. “Decentralisation as an Incentive Scheme.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 3: 24–43.

Samuelson, P. A. 1954. “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditures.” Review of Economics and Statistics 36: 387–89.

Shepsle, K. A. and B. R. Weingast. 1981. “Structure-Induced Equilibrium and Legislative Choice.” Public Choice 37: 503–19.

Schumpeter, J. 1947. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper and Bros.

Schap, D. 1986. “Executive Veto and Informational Strategy: A Structure-Induced Equilibrium Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 30.

Shleifer, A. 1985. “A Theory of Yardstick Competition.” Rand Journal of Economics 16: 319–27.

Shugart, M. and J. Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stigler, G. 1971. “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2: 3–21.

Stratmann, T. 1996. “Instability of Collective Decisions? Testing for Cyclic Majorities.” Public Choice 88: 15–28.

Stratmann, Thomas. 1992. “The Effects of Logrolling on Congressional Voting.” American Economic Review 82: 1162–76.

Strom, G. 1975. “Congressional Policy Making: A Test of a Theory.” Journal of Politics 37: 711–35.

Tiebout, C. M. 1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64: 416–24.

Temple, J. 1999. “The New Growth Evidence.” Journal of Economic Literature 37: 112–56.

Toma, E. and M. Toma. 1986. Central Bankers, Bureaucratic Incentives, and Monetary Policy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Toma, M. 1982. “Inflationary Bias of the Federal Reserve System: A Bureaucratic Perspective.” Journal of Monetary Economics 10.

Tocqueville, A. 1972/1835. Democracy in America. New York, N.Y.: Alfred Knopf Inc.

Tsebelis, G. 2002. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Tsebelis, G. and J. Money. 1997. Bicameralism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tullock, G. 1965. The Politics of Bureaucracy. Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press.

———. 1967. “The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft.” Western Economic Journal 5: 224–32.

———. 1980. Trials on Trial. New York: Columbia University Press.

Voigt, S. 1999. Explaining Constitutional Change: A Positive Economics Approach. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Waller, C. J. 1989. “Monetary Policy Games and Central Bank Politics.” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 21: 422–31.

Weingast, B. R. and M. J. Moran. 1983. “Bureaucratic Discretion of Congressional Control? Regulatory Policy Making in the FTC.” Journal of Political Economy 91: 765–800.

Weingast, B. R. and W. Marshall. 1988. “The Industrial Organization of Congress, or Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets.” Journal of Political Economy 89: 642–64.

Wintrobe, R. 1998. The Political Economy of Dictatorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wittman, Donald. 1995. The Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions are Efficient. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.