Acceso usuarios
M. Alfano, Anna Laura Baraldi
As competition in the economic market yields consumer benefits, political competition is supposed to be welfare-enhancing for citizens in terms promoting competence and good behaviour. Recent literature also underlines its costs, opening the possibility of a non-biunivocal way in which the degree of political competition affects economic growth. The parallel between economic and political competition allows the use of the normalized Herfindahl index as a measure of competition among political parties. Within the Italian regional elections scenario from 1980 to 2008, our findings confirm an inverted-U relationship between the degree of political competition and the regional growth rate. An “optimal” level of political competition allows for a reduction in the trade-off between political accountability and government instability. Moreover, political competition can be used as a “tool” for the growth enhancement of political corruption. However, the question posed by the findings is how to drive political competition to its optimal value.
