Abstract
We formalise the argument of those American founding fathers who opposed the inclusion of the Bill of Rights into the Constitution. For some parameter values, the legislator, who is not sure whether or not there are any rights that he is unaware of, optimally chooses not to enumerate even those rights that he is aware of. We also show that, even if the legislator can add the sentence ‘this Bill should not be interpreted as suggesting that any unlisted rights can be impaired by the government’ to the Bill, the equilibrium outcome will stay the same.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1774-1797 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Economic Journal |
Volume | 126 |
Issue number | 595 |
Early online date | 18 Apr 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2016 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Economics and Econometrics