Dynamic Legislative Bargaining with Endogenous Agenda Setting Authority

Abstract

Models of repeated legislative bargaining typically assume that an agenda setter is randomly selected each period, even if the agenda setter in the previous period successfully passed a proposal. In reality, successful legislative agenda setters (e.g., speakers, committee chairs) tend to hold onto power. We propose two alternative models in which successful agenda setters retain power. In the first model, a successful agenda setter automatically keeps power. Such an assumption is easy to work with and results in a policy equal to that in a traditional non-repeated game. In the second model, an agenda setter requires the support of a legislative majority to retain power. Such an assumption is realistic and results in the most-equitable policy outcome. Compared to both of these models, the standard random-selection assumption exaggerates the agenda setter’s ability to extract rent from the legislative process, and underestimates the well- being of the legislative majority.