The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy in Argentina

This book develops a general model of public policymaking, focusing on the difficulties of securing intertemporal exchanges among politicians. By using this model the authors are able to derive a series of empirical propositions about the conditions under which policies are likely to be volatile, rigid, or high quality. In addition, the authors combine the tools of game theory with Williamson’s transaction cost theory, North’s institutional arguments, and contract theory, to provide a general theory of public policymaking in a comparative political economy setting. They also undertake a detailed study of Argentina, using statistical analyses on newly developed data to complement their nuanced account of institutions, rules, incentives and outcomes. Drawing on this research the book explores the reasons for Argentina’s seeming inability to design and implement high quality public policies over a sustained period of time.

Author Biography

Pablo T. Spiller (Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago, 1980) is the Jeffrey A. Jacobs Distinguished Professor of Business & Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Research Associate, NBER. He has held academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign. He has published several books and more than ninety articles in the general area of political economy and industrial organization. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Economics, The Regulation Magazine and of The Utilities Project. He has been a Special Advisor to the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics, and was also an elected Member of the Board of Directors of the American Law & Economics Association. Mariano Tommasi (Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago, 1991) is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Universidad de San Andres and Director of the Center of Studies for Institutional Development, both in Argentina. Tommasi is President (2004-2005) of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association. He has published several books and articles, in journals such as American Economic Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, International Economic Review, Economics and Politics, and the Journal of Policy Reform among others. He has held visiting positions in the Departments of Economics and Political Science at Yale University, the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professorship of Latin American Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, the Ben Nathan Chair of Economics at Tel Aviv University, and a Visiting Professorship at the University of California – Los Angeles. He has been an advisor to several Latin American governments, and to international organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.