Fundamental Errors in the Voting Booth

Edward Glaeser and Giacomo Ponzetto

No 23683, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Psychologists have long documented that we over-attribute people’s actions to innate characteristics, rather than to luck or circumstances. Similarly, economists have found that both politicians and businessmen are rewarded for luck. In this paper, we introduce this “Fundamental Attribution Error” into two benchmark political economy models. In both models, voter irrationality can improve politicians’ behavior, because voters attribute good behavior to fixed attributes that merit reelection. This upside of irrationality is countered by suboptimal leader selection, including electing leaders who emphasize objectives that are beyond their control. The error has particularly adverse consequences for institutional choice, where it generates too little demand for a free press, too much demand for dictatorship, and responding to endemic corruption by electing new supposedly honest leaders, instead of investing in institutional reform.

JEL-codes: D72 E03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-pol
Note: POL
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Working Paper: Fundamental Errors in the Voting Booth (2017)
Working Paper: Fundamental Errors in the Voting Booth (2017)
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