The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives

Alessandro Lizzeri and Nicola Persico

American Economic Review, 2001, vol. 91, issue 1, pages 225-239

Abstract: Politicians who care about the spoils of office may underprovide a public good because its benefits cannot be targeted to voters as easily as pork-barrel spending. We compare a winner-take-all system--where all the spoils go to the winner--to a proportional system--where the spoils of office are split among candidates proportionally to their share of the vote. In a winner-take-all system the public good is provided less often than in a proportional system when the public good is particularly desirable. We then consider the electoral college system and show that it is particularly subject to this inefficiency.

Date: 2001
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