Rights,review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

Abstract. This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time–series cross–section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions.