Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/263139 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 22/373
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research, Zurich
Abstract: 
We examine how democracies choose their amount of checks and balances (C&B). For this purpose, we consider a simple model of political competition with costly policy reforms. The cost of a marginal reform is determined endogenously at the constitutional phase-i.e. before policies are chosen-through the choice of (the amount of) C&B. We characterize the set of stable C&B for different constitutional rules which vary depending on (i) who has the power to propose changes to C&B and (ii) on the qualified majority used for approving such changes. Our main results show that stable C&B always exist, are never zero, lead to gridlock, and are higher if the proposal-maker is the party in government. We also find that higher majority requirements for constitutional changes and more polarized societies are conducive to larger sets of stable C&B.
Subjects: 
elections
democracy
political polarization
reform costs
constitutions
checks and balances
JEL: 
C72
D72
D78
H4
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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