Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control: A Comment

German Gieczewski and Christopher Li

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2024, vol. 19, issue 3, 331-353

Abstract: We note and correct a flaw in the analysis of Ferejohn (1986)'s seminal model of electoral accountability. In the original solution, it is supposedly optimal for the voter to impose a stationary path of performance targets on officeholders. We show that, in fact, stationary paths are suboptimal; the voter can do better by choosing a path of performance targets that become increasingly lenient over time, which extracts more effort from the politician earlier on. We explicitly solve for the optimal performance targets for a class of examples and discuss the substantive implications of our exercise.

Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00023038

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