Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Legislation: Legislation is the process of making laws by a legislative body. It typically involves introducing a bill, debating, and voting. Legislation is a part of the democratic process. See also Law, Laws, Jurisdiction, Society, State, Democracy._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Public Choice Theory on Legislation - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 191 Legislature/Public choice theory/Farber: (…) early versions of public choice held that the sole goal of legislators was to be re-elected. As a simplifying assumption, this may have had some merits. After all, legislators who do not take an interest in re-election will be unable to accomplish their other goals for long. But the salary and fringe benefits of being a legislator do not seem great enough to explain why keeping the job would override all other interests. Motivations: A number of other motivations are plausible. To begin with, legislators may want to pursue their own views of public policy, even if they sometimes have to do so at the expense of a higher risk at the next election. It would also seem rational for voters and interest groups to support legislators who have firm policy views since their actions will be more predictable. Legislators may also be interested in their next jobs rather than their current ones. They may seek prominence as a stepping stone to higher office, either elective or appointive. Re-election: The re-election theory of legislator motivation suggests that legislative votes should correlate strongly with local economic interests. This appears to be the case, although it is hardly a counter-intuitive prediction. Vs: No one would expect that legislators from coal states would be on the forefront of climate change legislation. But the re-election thesis ascribes much more influence to re-election motives, holding that legislators are driven solely by re-election. Empirical problems: 1) (…) some notable empirical studies have found that a legislator's ideology also has an impact on her votes, though like most empirical studies they have their imperfections (Farber and Frickey(1), 1991, pp. 29—3 2). 2) VsReductionism: (…) a good deal of legislation seems inconsistent with the reductionist theory. Deregulation is an example, since it provides benefits to diffuse groups of consumers by lifting the limits on competition that benefited concentrated groups of businesses. Environmental law: Another example is environmental law. Federal pollution laws impose heavy costs on industry while benefiting diffuse groups such as large urban populations or communities living near rivers and lakes. Of course, no one believes that special interests are powerless in legislatures, but attributing hegemonic control to them is implausible. >Federalism/Public choice theory. Pork barrel projects: Another version of the re-election theory is that legislators have an incentive to support local pork barrel projects in order to woo local voters. Only a small share of the tax dollars financing the project come from the district, whereas the Parisi I 192 benefits of the projects flow there, so these projects are likely to be inefficient, with national costs exceeding their local benefits. (Note, however, that given limited funds to use for pork barrel projects, legislators will pick the most efficient local projects since they will produce the biggest local benefits given available resources.) >Corruption/Public choice theory. 1. Farber, D. A. and P. P. Fricky (1991). Law and Public Choice: A Critical Introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Farber, Daniel A. “Public Choice Theory and Legal Institutions”. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University Press_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Public Choice Theory Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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> Counter arguments against Public Choice Theory
> Counter arguments in relation to Legislation
