Bicameralism and its consequences for the internal organization of legislatures

Theories of organization of legislatures have mainly focused on the U.S. Co ngress, explaining why committee systems emerge there, but not explaining v ariance in organization across legislatures of different countries. To anal yze the effects of different constitutional features on the internal organi zation of legislatures we adopt a vote-buying model and consider the incent ives to delegate decision rights in a game among legislative chambers. We s how how presidential veto power and bicameral separation can encourage a le gislative chamber to create internal veto players or supermajority rules, w hile a unicameral structure can encourage legislators to delegate power to a leader. (JEL D72).