Public policy investment: Risk and return in British politics

This article sets out and tests a theory of public policy investment - how democratic governments seek to enhance their chances of re-election by managing a portfolio of policy priorities for the public, analogous to the relationship between investment manager and client. Governments choose policies that yield returns the public values; and rebalance their policy priorities later to adjust risk and stabilize return. Do the public reward returns to policy capital or punish risky policy investments? The article investigates whether returns to policy investment guide political management and statecraft. Time-series analyses of risk and return in Britain 1971-2000 reveal that risk and return on government policy portfolios predict election outcomes, and that returns, risk profiles and the uncertainty in public signals influence the prioritization of policies.

Originally Published at 10.1017/S0007123412000567

Files

Metadata

Work Title Public policy investment: Risk and return in British politics
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Anthony M. Bertelli
  2. Peter John
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. British Journal of Political Science
Publication Date December 7, 2012
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123412000567
Deposited January 22, 2024

Versions

Analytics

Collections

This resource is currently not in any collection.

Work History

Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added SSRN-id1900007-1.pdf
  • Added Creator Anthony M. Bertelli
  • Added Creator Peter John
  • Published
  • Updated