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Reaching across the aisle to block reforms

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Abstract

I propose a model of legislative bargaining among endogenous coalitions over multiple policy dimensions. I provide a characterization of (i) the partition of the legislature into coalitions, (ii) the policy reforms that coalitions propose (if any), and (iii) the policy outcome attained from these proposals. I show that—depending on the position of the status quo—either (1) the presence of coalitions does not affect the policy outcome and a median voter theorem holds, or (2) an alliance among legislators with extreme and opposite political views—i.e., a coalition of extremes—can successfully block reforms that would be feasible if legislator could not coalesce. Lastly, I show that the extent to which the existence of coalitions can increase the set of possible policy reforms is severely limited or null.

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  1. Department of Economics, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Valerio Dotti

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I thank the editor Nicholas Yannelis, an associated editor and two anonymous referees for helpful discussions and comments. I am thankful to Gaetano Antinolfi, V. Bhaskar, Michele Boldrin, Antonio Cabrales, Randall Calvert, Saumya Deojain, Justin Fox, Johannes Hörner, Guy Laroque, SangMok Lee, Gilat Levy, Konrad Mierendorff, Massimo Morelli, John Nachbar, Aureo de Paula, Ian Preston, John Roemer, Brian Rogers, Nikita Roketskiy, and Larry Samuelson for their helpful comments and suggestions. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Economic and Social Research Council.

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Dotti, V. Reaching across the aisle to block reforms. Econ Theory 72, 533–578 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-020-01298-6

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