Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs
A central feature of dynamic collective decision-making is that the rules that govern procedures for future decision-making and the distribution of political power across players are determined by current decisions. For example, current constitutional change must take into account how the new cons...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Economic Association
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72166 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0908-7491 |
| _version_ | 1811072816352591872 |
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| author | Acemoglu, Daron Egorov, Georgy Sonin, Konstantin |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Acemoglu, Daron Egorov, Georgy Sonin, Konstantin |
| author_sort | Acemoglu, Daron |
| collection | MIT |
| description | A central feature of dynamic collective decision-making is that the rules that govern procedures for
future decision-making and the distribution of political power across players are determined by current
decisions. For example, current constitutional change must take into account how the new constitution
paves the way for further changes in laws and regulations. We develop a general framework for the
analysis of this class of dynamic problems. Under relatively natural acyclicity assumptions, we provide
a complete characterization of dynamically stable states as functions of the initial state and determine
conditions for their uniqueness. The explicit characterization we provide highlights two intuitive features
of dynamic collective decision-making: (1) a social arrangement is made stable by the instability of
alternative arrangements that are preferred by sufficiently many members of the society; (2) efficiency-
enhancing changes are often resisted because of further social changes that they will engender. Finally,
we apply this framework to the analysis of the dynamics of political rights in a society with different
types of extremist views. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:14:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/72166 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:14:54Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | American Economic Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/721662019-05-17T09:17:54Z Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs Acemoglu, Daron Egorov, Georgy Sonin, Konstantin Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Acemoglu, Daron Acemoglu, Daron A central feature of dynamic collective decision-making is that the rules that govern procedures for future decision-making and the distribution of political power across players are determined by current decisions. For example, current constitutional change must take into account how the new constitution paves the way for further changes in laws and regulations. We develop a general framework for the analysis of this class of dynamic problems. Under relatively natural acyclicity assumptions, we provide a complete characterization of dynamically stable states as functions of the initial state and determine conditions for their uniqueness. The explicit characterization we provide highlights two intuitive features of dynamic collective decision-making: (1) a social arrangement is made stable by the instability of alternative arrangements that are preferred by sufficiently many members of the society; (2) efficiency- enhancing changes are often resisted because of further social changes that they will engender. Finally, we apply this framework to the analysis of the dynamics of political rights in a society with different types of extremist views. 2012-08-16T13:44:53Z 2012-08-16T13:44:53Z 2011-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0002-8282 1944-7981 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72166 Acemoglu, Daron, Georgy Egorov and Konstantin Sonin. "Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs." American Economic Review 102.4 (June 2012) pp.1446-76. OPEN_ACCESS_POLICY https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0908-7491 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1446 American Economic Review Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf American Economic Association MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Acemoglu, Daron Egorov, Georgy Sonin, Konstantin Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title | Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title_full | Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title_fullStr | Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title_short | Dynamics and Stability of Constitutions, Coalitions, and Clubs |
| title_sort | dynamics and stability of constitutions coalitions and clubs |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72166 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0908-7491 |
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