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Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization Advance Access originally published online on August 29, 2007
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 2008 24(1):95-119; doi:10.1093/jleo/ewm040
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Ministerial Weights and Government Formation: Estimation Using a Bargaining Model

Takanori Adachi*

University of Pennsylvania

Yasutora Watanabe**

Northwestern University

* Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania. Email: adachi{at}econ.upenn.edu.

** Department of Management & Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Email: y-watanabe{at}kellogg.northwestern.edu.

This article proposes a method to estimate relative ministerial weights in parliamentary democracies. Specifically, we present a bargaining model of government formation and estimate structural parameters of the model using data for (i) who the formateurs are, (ii) what each party's voting weight is, and (iii) what ministerial seats each party obtains. We also measure the effects of voting weights and formateur advantage on bargaining results. We apply our proposed method to the case of Japan. Our estimation results show that political players value pork-related posts (such as the Minister of Construction) much more than prestigious ones (such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs). We also find that there is a significant formateur advantage, whereas voting weights do not have a significant scale effect, which is consistent with the findings for European democracies.


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