By: Christopher Williams
Antonio M. Merlo, the Lawrence R. Klein
Professor of Economics and director of the Penn Institute
for Economic Research presented a lecture Thursday, October
11 on his paper "Whither Political Economy? Theories,
Facts and Issues."
Merlo discussed recent developments in today's
political economy and presented an overview of current
research on four of the fundamental institutions of a
political economy: voters, politicians, parties and governments.
He asked how it was possible to study the behavior of
politicians in a global environment and cited a past project
where he and two others created a list of every politician
who had ever been in congress since WWII. In this project,
Merlo and his collaborators had tracked their careers
and movements throughout their careers to gain insight
into their political minds and agendas.
"Show me what you did," Merlo
said, speaking about the politicians, "That's going
to tell me a lot more about you than what you can tell
me yourself."
The project's parameters extended back to
1947 and ran till 1996 and contained biographical data
and record of service in Congress, including scandals,
important legislative achievements and post-congressional
data like pensions and wages in other sectors.
Among their findings, Merlo said that economics
is not just about prices and quantities, but also about
the choices we make and our decisions.
Merlo said that political parties are just
aggregations of politicians, and politicians are voters,
and voters are the power behind government.
"Voters are indigenous; they are just
a subgroup of Individuals." Merlo said. "Politicians
were voters at some point in their life."
Merlo said he has never seen a politician
who was not an individual, and they are merely rational
individuals who make career decisions by comparing the
expected returns of alternative choices. The choice to
become a politician depends on the relative benefits and
costs of politics.
"Winning reelection is an (intermediate)
objective to realize other goals, like income, power,
policy..." Merlo said, "but the individual is
fully aware that current decisions affect the distribution
of future payoffs."
He said for example, if the politician chooses
to rerun and loses, he must pursue alternative employment
opportunities or retire. On the other hand, if he chooses
to rerun and win, he may be appointed to serve on committees
and face analogous decisions and problems in the next
period, etc.
Shawn Curtis, a political science major
from Nibley, Utah, was one of those in attendance at the
lecture.
"It's interesting to see who runs,"
Curtis said, “and what politicians are made of."
People interested in finding out more can
read the full text version of Merlos paper at: http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/~merloa/wpapers/survey_revision_2006.pdf
