Legislative bargaining with reconsideration

Abstract

We present a dynamicmodel of legislative bargaining with an endogenously evolvingdefault policy anda persistent agenda setter. Policymakingproceeds until the agenda setter can no longer pass a newpolicy to replace an approved bill. We prove existence and necessary conditions of pure-strategy stationary equilibria for any finite policy space, any number of players, and any preference profile. In equilibrium, the value of proposal power is limited compared to the case that disallows reconsideration, as voters are induced to protect each other's benefits to maintain their future bargaining positions. The agenda setter, in turn, would prefer to limit his ability to reconsider. The lack of commitment due to the possibility of reconsideration, however, enhances policy efficiency. © The Author(s) 2011. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved.