Flatliners: Ideology and Rational Learning in the Diffusion of the Flat Tax

greater penchant for reform in a ruling government, as well as public tolerance for reform.
Thus, it is possible that the presence of other reforms would make it more likely for us
to observe a government’s adoption of the flat tax.

Additionally, there is broad agreement that, regardless of the ideological stripe of the
policy in question, the difficulty of changing policies increases with the number of “veto
players” who must agree to the changes (North & Weingast, 1989; Alesina & Tabellini,
1998; Henisz, 1999, 2000, & 2004; Tsebelis, 2000). This has proven true in a number
of different environments: political constraints - be they coalition partners or political
institutions - lead to policy stability, for better or for worse. Most recent empirical studies
of policy change now take into account the presence of political constraints or checks
and balances (Henisz, 2002; Stasavage, 2000), including on taxation levels (Hallberg &
Basinger, 1999, 2004).

Thus, we can posit the above in the following hypotheses:

• H1 : An economically liberal ideology should increase the probability of adopting
the flat tax.

• H₂ : The enactment of other economic reforms should increase the probability of
adopting the flat tax.

• H₃ : A greater number of veto players should decrease the probability of adopting
the flat tax.

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