Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies

List of Tables and Figures xi Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxi Introduction 1(61) Overview 1(5) The Democratic Commitments to Government Involvement in the Macroeconomy 6(8) The Evolution of the Policy Commitments and of Macroeconomic Performance 14(27) Explaining Policy and Outcome Variation across Democracies over Time 41(8) The Political-Economic Implications 49(5) Conclusion 54(8) The Democratic Commitment to Social Insurance 62(64) Introduction: Motivation, the Explanandum, and a Road Map 62(2) Economic Inequality and Demand for Transfers in Pure Democracy 64(5) Democratic Management of Transfer Systems by Elected Governments 69(6) The Data and Empirical Methods 75(10) Empirical Evaluation of the Positive Political Economy of Transfers 85(23) Discussion, Conclusions, and Implications 108(18) Financing the Commitments: Public Debt 126(70) Introduction: Motivation, the Explanandum, and a Road Map 126(2) Democratic Management of Public Debt: Theories, Measures, Stylized Facts 128(22) Empirical Evaluation of the Positive Political Economy of Public Debt 150(37) Discussion, Conclusions, and Implications 187(9) Monetary Management of the Macroeconomy 196(60) Introduction: Motivation, the Explanandum, and a Road Map 196(3) Monetary-Policy-Making and Wage-Price-Bargaining Institutions 199(17) A Proposed Synthesis and Extension: Institutional-Structural Interactions 216(10) Empirical Evaluation of the Positive Political Economy of Monetary Policy Making and Wage-Price Bargaining 226(16) Discussion, Conclusions, and Implications 242(14) Comparative Democratic Political-Economy and Macroeconomic Policy Making 256(23) Concluding Themes 256(18) A Prospective Overview 274(5) References 279(22) Index 301