TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - The Evolution of a Fiscal Constitution When Individuals are Theoretically Uncertain T2 - European Journal of Law and Economics N2 - In contrast to the contractarian approach to constitutional economics, we follow Voigt (1999) in assuming that constitutional rules are closely connected to informal institutions and that their evolution is a matter of interest group activity and implicit re-interpretation. We add to this the assumption of theoretical uncertainty of individuals regarding the working properties of constitutional rules. Collective learning processes are considered as the third driving force of constitutional evolution, and at the same time as the source of path-dependencies which allow suboptimal constitutions to persist. Finally, it is argued that direct legislation offers more protection than a written fiscal constitution. KW - positive constitutional economics KW - collective learning KW - path-dependent rule-evolution Y1 - 2004 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026389926709 SN - 0929-1261 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 97 EP - 115 ER -