Working Paper: NBER ID: w14603
Authors: James A. Robinson; Ragnar Torvik
Abstract: We develop a model to understand the incidence of presidential and parliamentary institutions. Our analysis is predicated on two ideas: first, that minorities are relatively powerful in a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system, and second, that presidents have more power with respect to their own coalition than prime ministers do. These assumptions imply that while presidentialism has separation of powers, it does not necessarily have more checks and balances than parliamentarism. We show that presidentialism implies greater rent extraction and lower provision of public goods than parliamentarism. Moreover, political leaders who prefer presidentialism may be supported by their own coalition if they fear losing agenda setting power to another group. We argue that the model is consistent with a great deal of qualitative information about presidentialism in Africa and Latin America.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: H1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| presidentialism (H11) | greater rent extraction (D33) |
| presidentialism (H11) | lower public goods provision (H49) |
| greater rent extraction (D33) | lower public goods provision (H49) |
| majority group preference for presidentialism (D72) | presidentialism (H11) |
| presidentialism (H11) | concentration of power (D30) |