Political Economy |
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J. Alt, I. Preston and L. Sibieta, 2008, "The Political Economy of Tax Policy,"
Paper prepared for Mirrlees Review
This chapter highlights key points about the politics of tax policy and, where appropriate, makes policy recommendations.
T. Besley and I. Preston, 2007, "Electoral Bias and Policy Choice: Theory and Evidence,"
Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, 1473-1510.
This paper develops an approach to studying how bias in favor of one party due to the pattern of electoral districting affects policy choice. We tie a commonly used measure of electoral bias to the theory of party competition and show how this affects party strategy in theory. The usefulness of the approach is illustrated using data on local government in England. The results suggest that reducing electoral bias leads parties to moderate their policies.
Ian Preston
Department of Economics
University College London
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Email: i.preston@ucl.ac.uk