Does it Pay to Tinker with a Relic?

• In Event: Models of the Presidency

Abstract

There is frequently unhappiness voiced about the impact of the United States Congress on societal welfare. In response, there have been proposals, most notably by Howell and Moe (2016), to reform the separation of powers system so that presidents are allowed to control the legislative agenda and prevent the application of rules such as the filibuster. In this analysis, we formally examine what such changes toward a more executive-centric world would be expected to produce in terms of policy and social welfare. We show that, when we integrate reasonable assumptions about legislative and executive incentives into a dynamic model of decision-making, there are a variety of conditions under which a world with a more advantaged executive does not produce better outcomes. These findings are consistent with empirical observations that policy outputs are not necessarily worse in countries like the United States than in nations where executives have authority that more closely approximates what is being proposed by populist-oriented reformers.

Authors

• Gleason Judd, University of Rochester

• Lawrence S. Rothenberg, University of Rochester