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1、ComparativePoliticsandPublicFinance1TorstenPerssonIIES,StockholmUniversity;CEPR;NBER.GerardRolandECARE,UniversityofBrussels;CEPR.GuidoTabelliniBocconiUniversity;CEPR;CES-IfoAbstractWeproposeamodelwithmicropoliticalfoundationstocontrastdifferentpoliti-calregimes.Comparedto
2、aparliamentaryregime,theinstitutionsofapresidential-congressionalregimeproducelessincentivesforlegislativecohesion,butmoresepara-tionofpowers.Thesedifferencesarereflectedinthesizeandcompositionofgovernmentspending.Aparliamentaryregimehasredistributiontowardsamajority,lessu
3、nderpro-visionofpublicgoods,morerentstopoliticians,whereasapresidential-congressionalregimehasredistributiontowardspowerfulminorities,moreunderprovisionofpublicgoods,butlessrentstopoliticians.Thesizeofgovernmentissmallerunderapresi-dentialregime.Thislastpredictionisconsi
4、stentwithcross-countrydata.JELclassification:H00,D72,D78.Keywords:politicaleconomics,comparativepolitics,publicfinance,separationofpowers,legislativecohesion,electoralaccountability.21.IntroductionThelevelandcompositionofgovernmentspendingdisplaysenormousvariation,bothover
5、timeandacrosscountries.Inasampleof17industrializeddemocracies,averagegovernmentexpenditureasafractionofGDPgrewfromabout12%in1913toabout45%in1990;butthe1990levelrangedfromabout32%inJapantoabout59%inSweden.2Furthermore,whiletheaverageGDPshareoftransfersandsubsidiesgrewvery
6、rapidly,fromabout8%in1960toabout23%in1990,governmentconsumptiononlyincreasedfromabout12%to17%,whereaspublicinvestmentwasalmostflat;thecross-countryvariationisalsoconsiderableinthesedimensions.Inabroadersampleof54democracies,thecross-countryvariationinthesizeandscopeofgove
7、rnmentisevengreater(seeSection6,below).Itisfairtosaythattheeconomicsprofessionhasfailedtoconvincinglyexplainthesefirst-orderdifferences.Researchintraditionalpublicfinancedoesnotaskthequestion,sinceitspolicyanalysisismostlynormativeandabstractsfromtheunderly-ingpoliticalinst
8、itutions.Researchintraditionalpublicchoiceand,morerecently,inpoliticaleconomicsdoesattempttoexplainactu