Reciprocity and Democratic Accountability

Benjamin Blumenthal and Salvatore Nunnari

No 2026-24, Working Papers ECARES from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: We introduce reciprocity concerns in a political agency model with both symmetriclearning about politicians’ ability and moral hazard. In our framework, voters possessboth prospective motives, as they aim to select competent politicians, and retrospectiveones, as they reward actions seen as fair and punish actions seen as unfair. We studyhow institutional features affect politicians’ incentives to exert effort (electoral control)and voters’ removal of incompetent politicians (electoral screening). We show thatreciprocity can overturn standard results: increasing transparency of actions improveselectoral control if and only if voters’ reciprocity concerns are sufficiently strong, whileoffice rents have a non-monotone effect, and reducing rents can increase electoral control.We also show that reciprocity concerns shift the competence threshold incumbents mustclear to ensure reelection, generating an incumbency advantage when voters’ fairnessexpectations are low and an incumbency disadvantage when they are high

Keywords: Political Agency; Career concerns; Social Preferences; Behavioral Models of Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 p.
Date: 2026-06-29
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