Yardstick Competition and Political Agency Problems

Paul Belleflamme and Jean Hendriks
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Jean Hendriks: Queen Mary, University of London

No 441, Working Papers from Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Abstract: This paper analyzes the role of yardstick competition for improving political decisions. We examine how performance comparisons across jurisdictions affect the agency problem resulting from uncertainty about politicians (adverse selection) and their policies (moral hazard). We study two forms of inefficiency: the provision of non-valuable programmes (over-provision) and the failure to provide valuable programmes (under-provision). We find a general neutrality result: yardstick competition does not affect the chance that at least one type of politician in one jurisdiction will take inefficient decision, nor does it affect the risk of underproviding good programmes. However, performance comparisons reduce the risk of providing bad programmes in both jurisdictions.

Keywords: Electoral competition; Yardstick competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H20 H71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-10-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Yardstick competition and political agency problems (2005)
Working Paper: Yardstick competition and political agency problems (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:441

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