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Why do governments so often fail to adopt policies which economists consider to be efficiency-enhancing? Our answer to this question relies on uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses from reform. We show that there is a bias towards the status quo (and hence against efficiency-enhancing reforms) whenever some of the individual gainers and losers from reform cannot be identified beforehand. There are reforms which, once adopted, will receive adequate political support but would have failed to carry the day ex ante. The argument does not rely on risk aversion, irrationality, or hysteresis due to sunk costs.
The American Economic Review is a general-interest economics journal. Established in 1911, the AER is among the nation's oldest and most respected scholarly journals in the economics profession and is celebrating over 100 years of publishing. The journal publishes 11 issues containing articles on a broad range of topics.
Once composed primarily of college and university professors in economics, the American Economic Association (AEA) now attracts 20,000+ members from academe, business, government, and consulting groups within diverse disciplines from multi-cultural backgrounds. All are professionals or graduate-level students dedicated to economics research and teaching.
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The American Economic Review
© 1991 American Economic Association