Political Power and Economic Policy
Theory, Analysis, and Empirical Applications

This book analyzes the links between political economics, governance structures and the distribution of political power in economic policy making.

Gordon C. Rausser (Author), Johan Swinnen (Author), Pinhas Zusman (Author)

9780521190169, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2011

536 pages, 59 b/w illus. 17 tables
23.5 x 16 x 3.2 cm, 0.84 kg

'A must-read for individuals interested in political economy, the economics of agriculture, and natural resources. It weaves together theory and empirical case studies to introduce a creative, practical approach to explain the emergence and performance of institutions and economic policies.' David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley

This book analyzes the links between political economics, governance structures and the distribution of political power in economic policy making. The book theoretically explains and empirically quantifies these interactions. The analysis includes both public good policies and redistributive policies. Part I of the book presents the conceptual foundations of political-economic bargaining and interest group analysis. After presenting the underlying theory, Part II of the book examines ideology, prescription and political power coefficients; Part III analyzes a number of specific structures; and Part IV presents a framework for political econometrics with a number of empirical applications and testable hypotheses. In all four parts of the book, four analytical dimensions of public policy are distinguished: governance structures, political economy, mechanism design and incidence.

Part I. Political Power and Economic Analysis: 1. Public policy: the lens of political economy
2. The Nash solution to the bargaining problem
3. The Harsanyi solution to the bargaining problem
4. Political-economic analysis
5. Normative political-economic analysis
6. Dynamic political-economic analysis
Part II. Ideology, Prescription, and Political Power Coefficients: 7. Political power, ideology, and political organizational structures
8. Political power, influence, and lobbying
9. Constitutional prescription and political power coefficients
Part III. Analysis of Specific Structures: 10. The political economy of commodity market intervention
11. The political economy of public research and development
12. Political-economic analysis of redistributive policy and public good investments
13. Interest groups, coalition breaking, and productive policies
14. Policy reform and compensation
15. Political-economic analysis of land reform
16. Political-economic analysis of water resource systems
17. The political-economic lens on quality and public standard regulations
18. Political-economic analysis in transition economies
19. The power of bureaucracies: the European commission and EU policy reforms
Part IV. Empirical Applications of Political Power Estimation: 20. Political econometrics
21. The political econometrics of the Israeli dairy industry
22. Flexible policy instruments given a political power distribution
23. Estimating statistical properties of power weight parameters and their temporal shifts
24. Role of institutions in the joint determination of PERTs and PESTs.

Subject Areas: International business [KJK], Political economy [KCP], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], Research methods: general [GPS]