Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy

John Duggan and Cesar Martinelli

The Economic Journal, 2020, vol. 130, issue 627, 675-715

Abstract: We consider elections with hidden preferences and hidden actions, in which neither voters nor politicians can commit to future choices. When politicians are highly office motivated, they respond by choosing high policies to signal that they are above average, and some below-average politicians must randomise between choosing policies near their ideal points and mimicking above-average politicians by choosing high policies. If voter preferences are increasing, then elections deliver positive outcomes; but if voter preferences are single peaked, then politicians overshoot in the first period. Electoral incentives shift to sanctioning, rather than selection, as office motivation becomes large.

Keywords: Political Processes: Rent-seeking; Lobbying; Elections; Legislatures; and Voting Behavior; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy (2015)
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