Policy Boards and Policy Smoothing*
研究如何通过设立独立政策委员会来降低选举不确定性带来的政策波动，发现委员会能有效平滑政策、减少不确定性，并复现合作博弈结果。
Partisan politics and random election outcomes generate policy uncertainty and partisan business cycles. To reduce policy uncertainty, society must design the policy-making environment to overcome electoral uncertainty and partisanship. I show that delegating policy to an independent policy board with discretionary powers will produce substantial policy smoothing and lower policy uncertainty relative to a simple model in which elected officials set policy. Board members are chosen in a partisan, noncooperative environment; yet in the benchmark model, policy variability is eliminated, and the cooperative bargaining solution is replicated.