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Syftet med studien är att analysera förändringen i de svenska partiernas politiska program genom att tillämpa Public Choice skolans modeller. Med hjälp av medianväljarteoremet och Hotellingmodellen analyseras om modellerna är tillräckligt beskrivande för Sveriges partiförflyttningar. Vidare beräknas Herfindahl-Hirschman index för graden av maktkoncentration på den politiska ”marknaden”. Herfindahl-Hirschman indexet visar att koncentrationen på den politiska marknad blivit lägre över tid, viket indikerar på att konkurrensen mellan partierna blivit allt högre under perioden 1973-2014. För att analysera om det går att förklara förändringar i partiernas politik under perioden 1973-2014 tillämpas medianväljarteoremet. En diskussion kring testning av modellen görs samt en illustration hur medianväljarteoremet skulle kunna se ut för Sveriges partier. För att analysera om en endimensionell skala är beskrivande för de svenska partiernas förflyttningar har Hotellingmodellen tillämpats. Genom att illustrera dessa två modeller på Sveriges partier undersöks om modellerna ger en tillfredställande beskrivningar av förändringen i de svenska partiernas politiska program. Analysen ger vid handen att att Medianväljarmodellen inte förklarar förändringarna i partiernas politik på ett tillräckligt utförligt sätt. Hotellingmodellen kan bättre förklar både de svenska partiernas förflyttningar på vänster-högerskalan samt förändringar i partiernas politik. Utöver de nämnda modellerna konstateras att den enskilda faktor som är mest betydelsefull för hur partierna ändrat sina politiska program är partiernas beroende av väljarnas åsikter. / The aim of the study is to analyze changes in the Swedish political parties programs by applying the Public Choice approach. With help from the median voter theorem and the Harold Hotelling model, the paper analyzes if these models are sufficiently descriptive of Swedens political parties movements. A Herfindahl-Hirschman index is constructed which shows changes in concentration of political power over time. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index shows that the degree of concentration in the Swedish political “market” has become lower over time, which indicates that the party competition has increased during the period 1973-2014. In order to analyze whether it is possible to explain changes in the parties’ policies during the period 1973-2014 the median voter theorem is applied. A discussion about how this model can be tested is done as well as an illustration of how the median voter theorem could look like for the parties in Sweden. To analyze whether a one-dimensional scale is descriptive of the movements of the Swedish parties, the Harold Hotelling model is also applied. By illustrating these two models on Swedens parties, the paper investigates whether these models provide a satisfactory descriptions of the change in the Swedish parties political programs. The analysis concludes that the median voter theorem does not explain the changes in the parties politics in a sufficiently detailed manner. It is revealed that the Harold Hotelling model provides a better description for both the Swedish parties movements at the left-right scale and for the changes in the parties politics. In addition to the models mentioned the factor that that is most important for how the parties changed their political programs is the parties’ dependence of the voters opinions.

Who gets represented in America? How does representation change over time? This thesis attempts to answer both questions, which are necessarily linked to one another. I investigate long-term trends in representation and temporary fluctuations in group influence by using a probit model to examine the link between socioeconomic groups’ policy preferences and outcomes in year-groups roughly corresponding to presidential terms. I find evidence for the suggestion in the literature that American policymaking contains a strong bias in favor of the status quo, but I depart from the literature in finding little evidence for a suggested link between income and political influence. I find evidence of declining policy activity in the 1990s and 2000s relative to the 1980s but little evidence of a long-term trend towards less policy output. In general, I find little evidence of long-term trends in representation, including the idea that our policy outcomes are becoming more correlated with the views of minority groups such as African-Americans and Hispanics.

Práce se zabývá problematikou dobývání renty. Konkrétně vymezuje teoretická východiska dobývání renty a analyzuje jednotlivé způsoby ovlivňování vládních představitelů, převážně lobbying a korupci. Odpovídá na otázku, v čem spočívají neefektivnosti při ovlivňování vládních představitelů zájmovými skupinami a jak je možné tyto činnosti eliminovat nebo minimalizovat jejich negativní dopad na společnost. Analytická část práce vymezuje hlavní příčiny odlišných měr korupce v České republice a na Slovensku na počátku 90. let a porovnává úspěšnost provádění antikorupčních politik v těchto zemích.

For the past 50 years, Americans have turned to the federal government to solve pressing environmental problems like air and water pollution and climate change. Major environmental policies have helped improve environmental quality to varying degrees, but these policies also have resulted in negative consequences, such as high costs, inefficiency, violations of property rights, or environmental degradation. By applying public choice theory to the evolution of federal environmental policies, we can understand how negative consequences have arisen from seemingly good intentions. Public choice theory rejects the romantic notion that government officials work solely for the public good. Legislators and bureaucrats are rationally self-interested individuals who try to make themselves better off, like all people. Because legislators are interested in reelection and maximizing their power, they respond to special interest groups and lobbyists who can benefit them. Legislators often codify special benefits for certain companies or industries within environmental legislation and choose winners and losers, regardless of the economic or environmental outcomes. Environmental policies distort markets, altering the price signals that communicate what people value and imposing higher costs on taxpayers and consumers. Legislators often write environmental laws vaguely, giving bureaucrats wide discretion on how to implement the laws. Bureaucrats often write environmental regulations quickly and without scientific evidence or limited economic considerations, making many of the regulations costly and ineffective in many cases. The number of regulations also grows each year, raising compliance costs while the marginal benefit of these regulations continues to decline. Major federal environmental policies have had negative consequences, but experts have debated whether these outcomes were or were not intentional. Key politicians and bureaucrats may want to keep the current flawed laws in place because either they or their friends benefit from the status quo. Regardless of the intentionality or unintentionality of these negative consequences, large-scale federal environmental policies have provided decades of evidence that even the most nobly intended laws have significant drawbacks of which the public should be aware.