Do Elections Always Motivate Incumbents?

Eric Le Borgne and Ben Lockwood

No 269351, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies a principal-agent model of the relationship between o¢ceholders and the electorate, where the o¢ce-holder is initially uninformed about her ability (following Holmström, 1999). If o¢ce-holder e¤ort and ability interact in the “production function” that determines performance in o¢ce, then an o¢ce-holder has an incentive to experiment, i.e. raise e¤ort so that performance becomes a more accurate signal of her ability. Elections reduce the experimentation e¤ect, and the reduction in this e¤ect may more than o¤set the positive “career concerns” e¤ect of elections on e¤ort. Moreover, when this occurs, appointment of o¢cials (random selection from the citizenry and tenure) may Pareto-dominate elections.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Political Economy; Public Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2000-11-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:269351

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269351

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