Spending-Biased Legislators: Discipline Through Disagreement*
研究了有现时支出偏好的立法者如何因分歧导致政策持续，从而抑制过度支出冲动，并分析了不同贴现因子下财政责任行为的互补或替代效应。
Abstract We study legislators who have a present bias for spending: they want to increase current spending and procrastinate spending cuts. We show that disagreement in legislatures can lead to policy persistence that attenuates the temptation to overspend. Depending on the environment, legislators’ decisions to be fiscally responsible may either complement or substitute other legislators’ decisions. When legislators have low discount factors, their actions are strategic complements. Thus, changes of the political environment that induce fiscal responsibility are desirable as they generate a positive responsibility multiplier and reduce spending. However, when the discount factor is high, the same changes induce some legislators to free ride on others’ responsibility which may lead to higher spending.