Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 115 No. 1 2000
Policy Boards and Policy Smoothing*
open access
Abstract
Partisan politics and random election outcomes generate policy uncertainty and partisan business cycles. To reduce policy uncertainty, society must design the policy-making environment to overcome electoral uncertainty and partisanship. I show that delegating policy to an independent policy board with discretionary powers will produce substantial policy smoothing and lower policy uncertainty relative to a simple model in which elected officials set policy. Board members are chosen in a partisan, noncooperative environment; yet in the benchmark model, policy variability is eliminated, and the cooperative bargaining solution is replicated.
- DOI
- 10.1162/003355300554665
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 305-339
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref