Policies and prizes

Arye Hillman () and Ngo Long

European Journal of Political Economy, 2018, vol. 54, issue C, 99-109

Abstract: The political-economy view of public policy is that policies that do not have majority support among voters arise because of a principal-agent problem that impedes voter disciplining of policy decisions of political representatives. We study a case in which voter disciplining could take place and the policy decision was a choice between electoral popularity and the prospect of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The background for our model is the electorally-unpopular open-door refugee policy of German chancellor Angela Merkel. Our study motivates the question whether, because of the compromise of democratic accountability, it should be permissible for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to politicians, either as incumbents or after they have left political office.

Keywords: Immigration; Refugees; Asylum seekers; Nobel peace prize; Democratic accountability; Angela Merkel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:54:y:2018:i:c:p:99-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.03.008

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