Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 94 No. 2 1980

A Theory of Legislative Organization: Making the Most of Your Majority

Arleen Leibowitz¹; Robert Tollison²

¹ RAND Corporation · ² Virginia Tech

Abstract

In this paper we seek to explain why legislative committees exist and what is the optimal number and size of committees in a legislature. Our theory is based on the idea that committees are a “sample” taken from the full house and on the assumption that the majority party seeks to maximize the proportion of its favored bills which are reviewed and passed in voting trials. We show that for a given size of majority fewer and larger committees lead to larger passage rates, if majority members do not always vote the party-line.

DOI

10.2307/1884540

Volume

94

Issue

2

Pages

261

Sources

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