Elected Officials’ Opportunistic Behavior on Third-Party Punishment: An Experimental Analysis

Natalia Jiménez () and Ángel Solano-García ()
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Ángel Solano-García: Dpto. Teoría e Historia Económica
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Angel Solano Garcia ()

Working Papers. Serie EC from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie)

Abstract: In this paper we analyze how the punishment behavior of a democratically elected official varies when facing an electoral process (opportunism). To this aim, we conduct an economic experiment in which officials are third party punishers in a public goods game. We consider two different scenarios which differ in the degree of cooperation within the society. We¿find that officials increase their punishment when they face elections in both scenarios. Contrary to candidates expectations, voters always vote for the least severe candidate. En este artículo se analiza como el comportamiento sancionador varía si el que decide el grado de la sanción es elegido democráticamente o no. Para esto realizamos un experimento de laboratorio en el que unos sancionadores externos pueden castigar el comportamiento no cooperativo en un juego de bienes públicos. Consideramos dos posibles escenarios, uno donde existe una gran cooperación y otro donde ésta es escasa. Nuestros resultados muestran que aquellos sancionadores que se enfrentan a un proceso electoral son más duros en su castigo en ambos escenarios. Sin embargo, contrariamente a las expectativas de los candidatos, los votantes votan por el candidato menos severo.

Keywords: Oportunismo; castigo; juego de bienes públicos; votación; experimentos de laboratorio. Opportunism; Punishment; Public Goods Games; Voting; Experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D72 H4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasec/wpasec-2015-04.pdf Fisrt version / Primera version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Elected Officials’ Opportunistic Behavior on Third-Party Punishment: An experimental Analysis (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ivi:wpasec:2015-04

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