Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians

Roberto Brunetti () and Matthieu Pourieux
Additional contact information
Roberto Brunetti: Université Lumière Lyon 2, GATE UMR 5824, F-69130 Ecully, France and Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM-UMR6211, F-35000 Rennes, France

No 2319, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: This study leverages an online behavioral experiment to analyze political representation—whether politicians’ decisions align with citizens’ preferences over the same issue—and behavioral representation—whether politicians’ decisions align with citizens’ decisions within the same decision environment. We recruited 760 local politicians and 655 non-politicians in France to participate as policy-makers in a taxation-redistribution game. In the game, two policy-makers compete to choose a flat tax rate for a group of citizens, who are selected from the French general population and state their preferred tax rate. We exogenously manipulate (i) the information provided to policy-makers about citizens’ preferred tax rates and (ii) the degree of competition between policy-makers. Finally, we measure policy-makers’ beliefs regarding both citizens’ preferences and their competitor’s choice. We observe that policy-makers positively react to the information, but they often deviate from it, which can be mostly explained by their beliefs about both citizens’ preferences and their competitor’s choices. Varying the degree of political competition has no impact on these results. Finally, we find that politicians believe citizens want lower tax rates and are more confident in their beliefs than non-politicians. Once beliefs are accounted for, we observe little differences between the two groups within the game. Our findings suggest that policy-makers act as pro-social agents who implement citizens’ preferences based on their beliefs when they lack information about these preferences.

Keywords: Representation; Politicians’ Behavior; Online Experiment; Taxation-Redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D31 H24 H79 P19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-pol
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https://www.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2023/2319.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:2319

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