The Determinants of Executive Branch Compensation

Abstract

In the literature on the economic approach to politics and regulation the role of the executive branch of government has largely escaped the attention of scholars. Most analysis in this area, and in public choice generally, has focused on legislative behavior. Yet in our federal system of checks and balances, a tripartite system for legislation exists. To become a law, a measure must secure the approval of both houses of the legislature, the chief executive, and, if a subsequent dispute arises over the validity of the law, the judiciary. In a federal system the various branches of government are, in effect, constituted as separate legislative bodies. The chief executive, for example, through the use of the veto power, represents a third house of the legislature. Thus, in a practical, institutional sense the economic approach to analyzing politics is incomplete without some consideration of the behavior of the executive and judicial branches of government.¹