Pork for Policy: Executive and Legislative Exchange in Brazil / Lee J. Alston, Bernardo Mueller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alston, Lee J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mueller, Bernardo.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w11273.

NBER working paper series no. w11273

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Pork for Policy

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2005.

Summary:

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the President. We model and test Executive-Legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that Presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting their debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that Presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the Legislative and Executive benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2005.