Early conclusion in bicameral bargaining: Evidence from the co-decision legislative procedure of the European Union

Abstract

Time choices are a neglected aspect of the bicameral bargaining literature, even though they may both affect the efficiency of decision-making and have broader democratic implications. An analytical framework is developed to explain when early conclusion occurs in the legislative process. Testing the main implications of this model on the co-decision procedure of the European Union, the results offer a more positive view of early agreements in this system than the existing literature. The findings show that these deals are unlikely to occur when the European Parliament is represented by agents with biased views of the overall legislature. The conventional wisdom that the character of the negotiated files plays a role in explaining whether legislative files are concluded early is also rejected. Instead, bargaining uncertainty and the impatience of the co-legislators matter.

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