Political Decentralization and Policy Experimentation

被引：40

作者：

Cai, Hongbin ^{[2
]}

Treisman, Daniel ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Polit Sci, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA

[2] Peking Univ, Guanghua Sch Management, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China

来源：

QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE | 2009年 / 4卷 / 01期

关键词：

Decentralization; innovation; policy experiments; voting; information; PUBLIC-GOODS; FEDERALISM; BEHAVIOR; STATES;

D O I：

10.1561/100.00008039

中图分类号：

D0 [政治学、政治理论];

学科分类号：

0302 ; 030201 ;

摘要：

Since 1932, when justice Louis Brandeis remarked that in a federal system states can serve as "laboratories" of democracy, political decentralization has been thought to stimulate policy experimentation. We reexamine the political economy behind this belief, using a simple model of voting in centralized and decentralized democracies. We find that the electoral logic suggests the opposite conclusion: centralization usually leads to "too much" policy experimentation, compared to the social optimum, while decentralization leads to "too little." Three effects of centralization - an "informational externality," a "risk-seeking" effect, and a "risk-conserving" effect - account for the different outcomes.

引用

页码：35 / 58

页数：24

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