Towards a Behavioral Public Choice: Guilt-Aversion and Accountability in the Lab

Luca Corazzini, Sebastian Kube, Michel André Maréchal
Additional contact information
Luca Corazzini, Sebastian Kube, Michel André Maréchal: ISLA, Universita' Bocconi, Milano
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Michel André Maréchal and Sebastian Kube

No 27, ISLA Working Papers from ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy

Abstract: Mimicking standard features of electoral accountability and selection models, we conduct a computerized laboratory experiment in order to identify the influence of other-regarding preferences on democratic outcomes. We find that elected candidates are more pro-social towards their constituency the more favorable approval rates are. In contrast, this systematic positive relationship is not observed if the appointment is unintentionally determined by computer. These results suggest that a substantial fraction of candidates is motivated by guilt aversion. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of democratic institutions.

Keywords: guilt aversion; social preferences; accountability; constitutional design; public choice; experiment. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C92 D72 H1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2007-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://ftp.unibocconi.it/pub/RePEc/slp/papers/islawp27.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Failed to connect to FTP server ftp.unibocconi.it: No such host is known.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:slp:islawp:islawp27

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISLA Working Papers from ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy via Sarfatti, 25 - 20136 Milano - Italy.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stefano Riela ().