"Bicameral Winning Coalitions and Equilibrium Federal Legislatures"

Kalandrakis, Anastassios

akalandr@ucla.edu

Abstract:

I analyze a 'divide the dollar' game among Small and Large 'states' 
in a Bicameral legislature where the Upper House represents the 
regions and the Lower House represents the population. I 
characterize a stationary equilibrium -- as in Baron and Ferejohn 
(1989) -- when the overall probability of recognition of legislators 
from Large (Small) states is identical in each period. The optimal 
proposal is a solution to a(n Integer) Linear Programming problem. A 
Minimum Winning Coalition need not involve bare majorities in both 
Houses: a bare majority in one House is, in general, accompanied by 
an excess majority in the other. When funds are allocated among 
disproportionately populated Federal units, the votes of 
representatives from the same region in the two Houses are 
correlated so that oversized coalitions in one House may result. I 
also analyze the effect of institutional features such as the 
probability of Large (Small) states being recognized or the majority 
requirements in the two Houses on the distributional outcome between 
the two groups of states. The analysis pertains to a number of 
existing forms of Bicameral negotiations (Conference committees with 
a 'unit rule,' one-round Navette, and -- under particular 
assumptions -- infinite round Navette) while the underlying policy 
space is of importance to many Federations.