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Prudence And Success In Politics

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  • OLIVIER CADOT
  • BERNARD SINCLAIR‐DESGAGNÉ

Abstract

The paper considers a repeated election game between an infinitely‐lived representative voter and finitely‐lived, heterogeneous politicians. The voter's prior belief about the incumbent's competency is updated during the incumbent's first term in office. The voter's problem is to find a rule that simultaneously selects and controls politicians. We show that the simple performance rule, standard in the literature, is justified as a time‐consistent rule for a forward‐looking voter. The outcome of a large class of perfect equilibria is “strategic caution”: incumbent politicians slow down the voter's Bayesian learning by taking only weakly informative actions.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Cadot & Bernard Sinclair‐Desgagné, 1992. "Prudence And Success In Politics," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 171-189, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:4:y:1992:i:2:p:171-189
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1992.tb00061.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Sinclair-Desgagne, Bernard & Cadot, Olivier, 2000. "Career Concerns and the Acquisition of Firm-Specific Skills," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 204-217, September.
    2. Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 1995. "A simple model of disinflation and the optimality of doing nothing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1385-1404, August.
    3. Dur, Robert A J, 2001. "Why Do Policy Makers Stick to Inefficient Decisions?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(3-4), pages 221-234, June.
    4. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Sundaram, Rangarajan K., 1998. "Optimal Retention in Agency Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 293-323, October.

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