Insulating leaders raises reform odds but also expropriation risk
Evidence
The model, then, identiļ¬es a trade oļ¬at the constitutional stage: a more insulated leader can be less easily blocked, so the probability that a good reform passes is higher, but individuals are also more likely to suļ¬er losses from expropriation. The choice of M occurs ex ante, before the realization of āaā and the size of M cannot be made contingent upon the realization of a. Thus, we assume that the corresponding events cannot be described ex ante, and we rule out social contracts contingent upon messages that voters would exchange ex post about the realization of these random variables. ā Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina, and Francesco Trebbi, Endogenous Political Institutions, 33
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Compresses a whole constitutional-design dilemma into one trade-off and then announces the modeling commitment (no ex post contingent contracts) that makes the dilemma binding.
- XREF: Echoes the veil-of-origin/constrained-constitution literature the reader likely knows from Buchanan and Rawls.