Voters' Commitment Problem and Welfare-Program Reforms

This paper proposes that reforms by vote-seeking governments and the existence of reform-adverse voters are logically compatible. This results from a commitment problem on the part of voters. Due to economic voting voters cannot credibly commit to reelect a non-reforming government during a recession. The empirical implication of this voter commitment mechanism is that governments only adopt visible welfare-program reforms during economic lows, which is what the empirical political-economic literature has established.