Making Elections Work: Accountability with Selection and Control

Vincent Anesi and Peter Buisseret

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2022, vol. 14, issue 4, 616-44

Abstract: We study the limits of dynamic electoral accountability when voters are uncertain about politicians' characteristics (adverse selection) and their actions (moral hazard). Existing work argues that voters cannot achieve their first-best payoff. This is attributed to inherent deficiencies of the electoral contract, including voters' inability to precommit, and the restriction to a binary retention-replacement decision. We provide conditions under which voters can, despite these constraints, obtain arbitrarily close to the first-best payoff in an equilibrium of the electoral interaction. Our paper resolves that there need not be a trade-off between selection and control.

JEL-codes: D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:616-44

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DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200311

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