Legislatures and policy uncertainty: evidence from East Central Europe

Relying on social choice theory, this paper argues that uncertainty regarding future public policies is likely to be related to party institutionalization and legislative organization. The argument is evaluated using survey data from businesses in eight EU member states in East Central Europe. It fi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zubek, R, Stecker, C
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2010
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Summary:Relying on social choice theory, this paper argues that uncertainty regarding future public policies is likely to be related to party institutionalization and legislative organization. The argument is evaluated using survey data from businesses in eight EU member states in East Central Europe. It finds that firms report lower concern over policy uncertainty in systems with higher party institutionalization. There is also some evidence, although less robust, that restrictive parliamentary agenda control leads to lower perceptions of policy uncertainty and this effect mediates the influence of party instiutionalization. These results tend to hold if one controls for the effect of other national and firm-level factors.