To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians

Matias Iaryczower, Garrett Lewis and Matthew Shum ()

Journal of Public Economics, 2013, vol. 97, issue C, 230-244

Abstract: In this paper, we address empirically the trade-offs involved in choosing between bureaucrats and politicians. In order to do this, we map institutions of selection and retention of public officials to the type of public officials they induce. We do this by specifying a collective decision-making model, and exploiting its equilibrium information to obtain estimates of the unobservable types. We focus on criminal decisions across US states' Supreme Courts. We find that justices that are shielded from voters' influence (“bureaucrats”) on average (i) have better information, (ii) are more likely to change their preconceived opinions about a case, and (iii) are more effective (make less mistakes) than their elected counterparts (“politicians”). We evaluate how performance would change if the courts replaced majority rule with unanimity rule.

Keywords: Structural estimation; Strategic voting; Common values; Bureaucrats; Politicians (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:97:y:2013:i:c:p:230-244

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.08.007

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