We develop a simple two period model to study the importance of motivational differences among politicians in … describing the role of elections and explaining policy choices. In our model, politicians differ in their motives of running … public office. Good politicians care about policies while bad politicians care about rent extraction. Voters want to control …

At the start of their term, politicians often announce which issue they intend to address. To shed light on this agenda … addressing an issue means that the status quo is maintained. Politicians differ in their ability to make correct decisions. They … that politicians and voters have different priors concerning the desirability of a major reform. We show that electoral …

A firm may induce voters or elected politicians to support a policy it favors by suggesting that it is more likely to …

survey experiment among Dutch politicians, we find that politicians conform their expressed opinion about policy experiments … neither are politicians when we tell them that voters are not. …

We study electoral competition among politicians who are heterogeneous both in competence and in how much they care … politicians may have stronger incentives to behave opportunistically if other politicians are more likely to behave … politicians’ incentives to behave opportunistically increase with politicians’ pay and with polarization of policy preferences. …

. Elections are needed as a carrot and a stick to motivate politicians, yet politicians who are overly interested in re-election …Democracies delegate substantial decision power to politicians. Using a model in which an incumbent can design, examine …

A firm may induce voters or elected politicians to support a policy it favors by suggesting that it is more likely to …