Public Choice by Referenda or Delegation. An Experimental Comparison of Direct and Indirect Democracy

Werner Gueth (), Martin Kocher, Katinka Pantz () and Matthias Sutter
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Werner Güth ()

Papers on Strategic Interaction from Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group

Abstract: Direct democracy with its use of referenda avoids the prototypical principal-agent problems of delegation in indirect democracies, especially since elected representatives are usually not committed by law to keep their promises. Sequential or more complex referenda may, however, result in an inferior combination of realized policy measures. Thus, it is an open question which type of institution (direct or indirect democracy) will be more efficient. Our experimental study explores this issue and finds that direct democracy seems to perform better.

Keywords: referenda; delegation; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2004-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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