Dr. Corinna Ahlfeld

Abstract
Corresponding to the saying "Too many cooks spoil the broth" political decision-making is a challenging issue, especially when more than one party is involved. In the common opinion, political fragmentation either in parliament or in government slows down the legislative process and causes reform blockades. Whether too many cooks are really the source of these drawbacks is questionable as many other factors such as compensation payments, strategies and social norms are also connected with the process of decision-making and the role of fragmentation. The book at hand takes a closer look at these issues and their interplay with reform delays.

Keywords: decision-making, fragmentation, compensation payments, heterogeneity, lobbying, legislation, politics, political parties, economy, reform

Corinna Ahlfeld was born in the city of Lübeck, Germany in 1981. She studied at the Faculty of Economics in Göttingen from 2000 to 2005. Afterwards, she worked as a research assistant Göttingen University, where she completed her dissertation in 2009.

Other Online-Publications

Corinna Ahlfeld The scapegoat of heterogeneity - How fragmentation influences political decisionmaking Abstract: It is regularly stated that political fragmentation has negative effects on reforms leading to delays or even blockades. This connection is reflected in the 'weak government hypothesis' arguing that fragmented governments create higher budget deficits. Although the assumption seems logical, reviewing theoretical and empirical research on the topic does not completely support this hypothesis. In fact, only few theoretical models concentrate on the impact of fragmentation and empirical findings on the issue are ambiguous. Disentangling the effect is intricate: The definition of fragmentation has various dimensions and every model or empirical study does neglect at least some important factors. In the following I would like to shed some light on the relation and the shortcomings of recent findings. As fragmentation will have various effects on political actions it seems unjustified to generally make it the scapegoat of reform delays. Paper provided by University of Goettingen, Department of Economics in its series Departmental Discussion Papers with number 143.

Corinna Ahlfeld Speeding up Reforms? Fragmentation and Compensation Payments in an Experimental Design Abstract: Reform delays emerge frequently in politics but can be solved using compensation payments. A higher degree of fragmentation among the addressees may- according to the theory- reduce these costs. The number of groups and the inherent uncertainty normally influence agents' behaviour. When this prediction holds and behaviour is in fact influenced by the number of groups, fragmentation will not outperform a less fragmented society concerning compensation costs. An experiment is conducted to evaluate the effects of fragmentation on agents' decisions and shows that the theoretic result as such cannot be applied to the behaviour of agents. Paper provided by University of Goettingen, Department of Economics in its series Departmental Discussion Papers with number 139.

Corinna Ahlfeld More Groups, Cheaper Reforms? Abstract: The topic of reforms is hotly debated among politicians and researchers. There are many approaches to explore the origins of reform deadlocks and budget deficits. Central to all these approaches are the costs generated either by the Status Quo or by eliminating the Status Quo via a reform. Costs generated by the reform can be offset by the government using compensation payments. Crucial for a successful reform is to minimize these compensation costs. The task is rather complicated, as certain groups of individuals, such as countries, federal states or political parties are hard to separate. Against this background this paper shows that under a majority rule the compensation costs can be minimized via enacting fragmentation among the population. Paper provided by University of Goettingen, Department of Economics in its series Departmental Discussion Papers with number 138.