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In this experiment, voters select a leader who can either act in the public interest, i.e. make efficient and equitable policy choices, or act in a corrupt way, i.e. use public funds for private gain. Voters can observe candidates' pro-social behavior and their score in a cognitive ability test...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012960328
We examine the incentives to self-select into politics and how they depend on the transparency of the entry process. To this end, we set up a two-stage political competition model and test its key mechanisms in the lab. At the entry stage, potential candidates compete in a contest to become...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011543745
Promises are prevalent in many competitive environments, but promise keeping is often difficult to observe. Do promises still offer an opportunity to honor future obligations, if promise keeping is unobservable? Focusing on campaign promises, we study the value of transparency. We showhow...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012830361
Promises are prevalent in many economic environments. They offer the opportunity to honor future obligations when promise keeping is observable. This paper studies the value of transparency and asks whether promises still work if such transparency is missing. We focus on the context of campaign...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012231501
observed voting behavior can be explained, to a substantial extent, by three behavioral mechanisms: (a) distinct levels of …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012841512
We show that a large electorate of ignorant voters can succeed in establishing high levels of electoral accountability. In our model an incumbent politician is confronted with a large number of voters who receive very noisy signals about her performance. We find that the accountability problem...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011287647
We show that a large electorate of ignorant voters can succeed in establishing high levels of electoral accountability. In our model an incumbent politician is confronted with a large number of voters who receive very noisy signals about her performance. We find that the accountability problem...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013019971
This paper studies a principal-agent model of the relationship between an incumbent officeholder and the electorate, where the officeholder is initially uninformed about her ability. If officeholder effort and ability interact in the production function that determines performance in office,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012783048
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders' quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013259838
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders' quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013191646