Should we cut on the executive in order to save the constitutional state?

Wasniewski, Krzysztof (2016): Should we cut on the executive in order to save the constitutional state?

Abstract

Constitutional states, as a separate category of social structures, are progressively losing their economic power, as measured with their capacity to appropriate the available capital stock. Fiscal policies, and the corresponding institutions of public finance, play a significant role in the public appropriation of capital, both through direct redistribution and indirect incentives to private allocation. Policies evolve into institutions after experimentation, yet, as a species, we are not really good at experimenting with our own social structures. The case of New Zealand and their public reforms shows an interesting path, possibly to follow, so as to increase the capacity of experimenting with fiscal policies – and to devise more efficient institutions - through enhanced fiscal prerogatives of the legislative in comparison to the executive.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: institutional economics; political economy; fiscal policy
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H0 - General; H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government; H - Public Economics > H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

References

Beck, T., Clarke, G., Groff, A., Keefer, P., Walsh, P. (2001) New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions, The World Bank Economic Review, vol. 15, no. 1: 165–176

Braudel, F. (1981) Civilization and Capitalism, Vol. I: The Structures of Everyday Life, rev.ed., English Translation, William Collins Sons & Co London and Harper & Row New York, ISBN 00216303 9

Braudel, F. (1983) Civilisation and Capitalism. Part II: The Wheels of Commerce, trans. Sian Reynolds, Book Club Associates, William Collins Sons & Co, pp. 514 - 555

Breznitz, D., Ornston, D. (2013) The Revolutionary Power of Peripheral Agencies: Explaining Radical Policy Innovation in Finland and Israel, Comparative Political Studies, volume 46, issue 10, Oct 2013, pp. 1219 - 1245

Diamond, P., E. (1965) National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model, The American Economic Review, volume 55, issue 5 (Dec., 1965), pp. 1126 - 1150

Feenstra, R. C., Inklaar, R., Timmer, M.P. (2015), The Next Generation of the Penn World Table, forthcoming in American Economic Review, available for download at www.ggdc.net/pwt

Francis, John G. and Leslie P. Francis (2011), Rights Variation within a Federalist System: Understanding the Importance of Mobility, Political Research Quarterly. 64: 82-93

Fraser, N. (1990), Rethinking the Public Sphere. A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, Social Text, vol. 25/26: 56-80

Goldman, F., E. Brashares (1991) Performance and Accountability: Budget Reform in New Zealand, Public Budgeting and Finance, vol.11(4), pp.75¬85

Habermas, J. (1975) Legitimation Crisis, translated by T.McCarthy, Boston, 1975

Habermas, J. (1979) Communication and the Evolution of Society, translated by T.McCarthy, Boston 1979

Habermas, J. (1996) Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, translated by William Rehg, Second Printing

International Monetary Fund (2015) The World Economic Outlook Database, October 2015

Janeba, Eckhard (2006), Moral Federalism, Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy, 5: article 32

Keefer, P. (2012), Database of Political Institutions: Changes and Variable Definitions, Development Research Group The World Bank, December 2012

King, Loren A. (2005), The Federal Structure of a Republic of Reasons, Political Theory. 33: 629 -653

Meade, J.,E. (1958) Is the National Debt a Burden, Oxford Economic Papers, Volume 10, Issue 2 (Jun., 1958), pp. 126 - 150

Modigliani, F. (1961) Long-Run Implications of Alternative Fiscal Policies And the Burden of the National Debt, Economic Journal, no. 71, pp. 730 - 755

Oates, Wallace. E. (1972), Fiscal Federalism, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Schlatter, R. (1951) Private property, the history of an idea, New Brunswick : N.J., Rutgers University Press

Taylor, C. (2011) A Macroeconomic Regime for The 21st Century. Towards a new economic order – Routledge, Taylor & Francis, London and New York, ISBN 978-0-415-59898-9, pp.13 - 81

Tiebout, Charles M. (1956), A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures, The Journal of Political Economy. 64: 416-424