This paper provides experimental evidence on the electoral effect of a large education reform in a developing democracy. Despite significantly improving school quality, the policy reduced the incumbent party's presidential vote share by 3 percentage points (10%). This does not imply that voters...

This paper provides experimental evidence on the electoral effect of a large education reform in a developing democracy. Despite significantly improving school quality, the policy reduced the incumbent party's presidential vote share by 3 percentage points (10%). This does not imply that voters...

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...

We present an electoral theory on the public provision of local public goods to an imperfectly informed electorate. We show that electoral incentives lead to greater spending if the electorate is not well informed. A more informed electorate induces candidates to target funds only to specific...

Economists usually think that rational voters have little incentives to acquire costly information. We present a theoretical model to show that, in contrast to this widely held belief, rational voters acquire considerable amounts of information if media technology is available because then they...

Journalism is widely believed to be crucial for holding elected officials accountable. At the same time economic theory has a hard time providing an instrumental explanation for the existence of "accountability journalism". According to the common Downsian reasoning, rational voters should not...

Journalism is widely believed to be crucial for holding elected officials accountable. At the same time economic theory has a hard time providing an instrumental explanation for the existence of "accountability journalism". According to the common Downsian reasoning, rational voters should not...

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...

We present an electoral theory on the public provision of local public goods to an imperfectly informed electorate. We show that electoral incentives lead to greater spending if the electorate is not well informed. A more informed electorate induces candidates to target funds only to specific...

Economists usually think that rational voters have little incentives to acquire costly information. We present a theoretical model to show that, in contrast to this widely held belief, rational voters acquire considerable amounts of information if media technology is available because then they...