Identifying voter preferences: The trade-off between honesty and competence

Fabio Galeotti and Daniel Zizzo

European Economic Review, 2018, vol. 105, issue C, 27-50

Abstract: We set up two experiments to measure how voters trade off the competence and honesty of candidates in elections. We measure the competence and honesty of candidates by asking them to work on a real effort task and decide whether to report truthfully or not the value of their work. In the first stage, the earnings are the result of the competence and honesty of one randomly selected participant. In the second stage, subjects can select who will determine their earnings based on the first stage's competence and honesty of the alternative candidates. We find that most voters tend to have a bias towards caring about honesty even when this results in lower payoffs.

Keywords: Voting preferences; Competence; Honesty; Election (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:105:y:2018:i:c:p:27-50

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2018.03.007

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