Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians

Roberto Brunetti () and Matthieu Pourieux
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Roberto Brunetti: GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - EM - EMLyon Business School - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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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.

Keywords: Representation; Politicians' Behavior; Online Experiment; Taxation-Redistribution JEL codes: D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04598638v2
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Working Paper: Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians (2023)
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