Political Institutions and the Origin of the Problem of Time-Inconsistency

論文發表人: 林偉修 (克萊蒙研究大學政治與政策所博士班)

 

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政府回應貨幣攻擊的態度決定了貨幣攻擊的結果。近來研究發現，因時序不一致問題引發延遲的貨幣貶值是導致金融危機的主因之一。儘管諸多文獻已揭櫫之間的關聯性，但少有文獻探究該問題的起源。本文認為，時序不一致問題的嚴重程度會隨著民主國家的政治制度設計而有所不同，許多例證已顯示，部分國家能抵禦追求短期利益的引誘進而採取有效政策以解決可能的貨幣危機。準此，本文認為，時序不一致的問題乃是政治制度偏差所致，不同政治制度提供政黨迥異的誘因去追求短期政治利益或追求極大化選票。當選票因制度設計之故與行政部門的形成和政策影響力直接相關時，政府則傾向於追求短期利益，也就是傾向於以延遲貨幣貶值回應貨幣攻擊。為證明此觀點，本文採用Binary Logistic Regression模型評估政治制度對於政府延遲貨幣貶值的影響。該模型衡量1983年1月至2003年12月間，48個已開發和開發中國家在121貨幣危機中政府延遲貨幣貶值的狀況。研究結果發現，總統制政府相較內閣制政府更傾向於延遲貨幣貶值；有任期限制(term-limited)的政府相較無任期限制的政府更傾向於延遲貨幣；這些變數在多黨制(multi-party system)相較於兩黨制(two-party system)下的影響在統計上更為顯著。

 

The attitude of government to respond speculative currency attacks determines the result of attacks. More recently researches have found that delayed optimal remedial measures caused by time-inconsistency problem to government would be one of the reasons behind the occurrence of currency crises. However, despite a large body of work, little attention has been paid to the source of time-inconsistency problem. In fact, time-inconsistency problem varies in terms of the different constitutional design of democratic countries. In many cases, some countries are able to withstand the temptation from obtaining the short-term political benefits and then adopt optimal policies to cope with a currency crunch. This paper argues that time-inconsistency problem is the bias of the design of political institutions, in which different institutional designs would offer political parties distinct incentives to pursue the short-term political benefits or to maximize votes, especially where votes directly involve the establishment of the executive and the policy influence. For testing this argument empirically I would use binary logistic regression model to estimating the impact of political institutions on the timing that countries respond to speculative attacks in a sample of 121 speculative attacks in 48 developed and developing countries with monthly data from January 1983 to December 2003. All other thing being equal, the empirical evidence indicates that delayed devaluation is more likely (1) under presidentialism rather than under parliamentary; (2) under governments with term-limited rather ones without term-limited; (3) under multi-party systems rather than under two-party systems.