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Coalition-Preclusion Contracts and Moderate Policies

Gersbach, Hans; Tejada, Oriol; Schneider, Maik T. - CER-ETH Center of Economic Research, Department of … - 2014

We examine the effects of a novel political institution, which we call Coalition- Preclusion Contracts, on elections, policies, and welfare. Coalition-Preclusion Contracts enable political parties to credibly commit before the elections not to form a coalition after the elections with one or...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010762513

A Theory of Threshold Contracts

Becker, Johannes Gerd; Gersbach, Hans - CER-ETH Center of Economic Research, Department of … - 2013

We consider an innitely repeated reappointment game in a principal- agent relationship. Typical examples are voter-politician or government- public servant relationships. The agent chooses costly effort and enjoys being in office until he is deselected. The principal observes a noisy signal of...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010900154

Sophisticated attacks on decoy ballots: A devil's menu and the market for lemons

Gersbach, Hans; Tejada, Oriol; Mamageishvili, Akaki - 2017

Decoy ballots do not count in election outcomes, but otherwise they are indistinguishable from real ballots. By means of a game-theoretical model, we show that decoy ballots may not provide effective protection against a malevolent adversary trying to buy real ballots. If the citizenry is...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011853962

Tax contracts and elections

Gersbach, Hans; Schneider, Maik T. - In: European Economic Review 56 (2012) 7, pp. 1461-1479

In this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts as a novel institution on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government and voters may behave strategically. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010580679

Tax Contracts and Elections

Gersbach, Hans; Schneider, Maik T. - CER-ETH Center of Economic Research, Department of … - 2009

In this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts as a novel institution on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good provision and benefit from perks...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008557104

Elections, Contracts and Markets

Gersbach, Hans; Müller, Markus - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006

. To solve this problem, we propose a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold … contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to predict the long-term performance of a policy, while … threshold contracts stipulate a price level on the political information market that a politician must reach to have the right …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005067506

Higher Vote Thresholds for Incumbents, Effort and Selection

Gersbach, Hans - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2009

The election mechanism has difficulties in selecting the most able candidates and deselecting less able ones. In a simple model we show that the power of elections as a selection and incentive device can be improved by requiring higher vote thresholds than 50% for incumbents. A higher vote...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005025512

Re-election Threshold Contracts in Politics

Gersbach, Hans; Liessem, Verena - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2005

When politicians are provided with insufficient incentives by the democratic election mechanism, social welfare can be improved by threshold contracts. A threshold contract stipulates the performance level that a politician must reach in order to obtain the right to stand for re-election. 'Read...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005656153

The Paradox of Competence

Gersbach, Hans - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2004

We examine a model in which the public is unsure about the competence of a politician, and whether they are concerned about the long-term consequences of their decisions (statesman) or about the public’s opinion concerning their competence and preferences (populist). The main finding suggests...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005661555

Designing Democracies for Sustainability

Gersbach, Hans; Kleinschmidt, Tobias - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2004

Democratic processes may not take the welfare of future generations sufficiently into account and thus may not achieve sustainability. We show that the dual democratic mechanism – rejection/support rewards (RSRs) for politicians and elections – can achieve sustainability. RSRs stipulate that...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005662383