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Nonrepresentative Representatives: An Experimental Study of the Decision Making of Elected Politicians

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  • SHEFFER, LIOR
  • LOEWEN, PETER JOHN
  • SOROKA, STUART
  • WALGRAVE, STEFAAN
  • SHEAFER, TAMIR

Abstract

A considerable body of work in political science is built upon the assumption that politicians are more purposive, strategic decision makers than the citizens who elect them. At the same time, other work suggests that the personality profiles of office seekers and the environment they operate in systematically amplifies certain choice anomalies. These contrasting perspectives persist absent direct evidence on the reasoning characteristics of representatives. We address this gap by administering experimental decision tasks to incumbents in Belgium, Canada, and Israel. We demonstrate that politicians are as or more subject to common choice anomalies when compared to nonpoliticians: they exhibit a stronger tendency to escalate commitment when facing sunk costs, they adhere more to policy choices that are presented as the status-quo, their risk calculus is strongly subject to framing effects, and they exhibit distinct future time discounting preferences. This has obvious implications for our understanding of decision making by elected politicians.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheffer, Lior & Loewen, Peter John & Soroka, Stuart & Walgrave, Stefaan & Sheafer, Tamir, 2018. "Nonrepresentative Representatives: An Experimental Study of the Decision Making of Elected Politicians," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 302-321, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:112:y:2018:i:02:p:302-321_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Sandro Ambuehl & B. Douglas Bernheim & Axel Ockenfels, 2019. "Projective Paternalism," NBER Working Papers 26119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Albert Argilaga & Jijian Fan, 2022. "Optimal Policymaking under Yardstick Vote: An Experimental Study," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-24, May.
    3. Persson, Emil & Tinghög, Gustav, 2020. "Opportunity cost neglect in public policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 301-312.
    4. Donato Masciandaro, 2023. "Politicians, Trust, Financial Literacy and Financial Education: When Do Politicians Care?," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 23208, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Jean Roisse Rodrigues Ferreira, 2022. "Decision-Making under Risk: Conditions Affecting the Risk Preferences of Politicians in Digitalization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-12, March.
    6. Barbara Vis & Sjoerd Stolwijk, 2021. "Conducting quantitative studies with the participation of political elites: best practices for designing the study and soliciting the participation of political elites," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1281-1317, August.
    7. Binswanger, Johannes & Oechslin, Manuel, 2020. "Better statistics, better economic policies?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    8. Laura Hueber & Rene Schwaiger, 2021. "Debiasing Through Experience Sampling: The Case of Myopic Loss Aversion," Working Papers 2021-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    9. Roberto Brunetti & Matthieu Pourieux, 2023. "Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians," Working Papers 2319, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    10. Razen, Michael & Kirchler, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Domain-specific risk-taking among finance professionals," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    11. Donato Masciandaro, 2023. "Politicians, Trust and Financial Literacy: When Do Politicians Care?," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 23206, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    12. Sandro Ambuehl & Sebastian Blesse & Philipp Doerrenberg & Christoph Feldhaus & Axel Ockenfels, 2023. "Politicians' Social Welfare Criteria: An Experiment with German Legislators," CESifo Working Paper Series 10329, CESifo.
    13. Grossman, Guy & Humphreys, Macartan & Sacramone-Lutz, Gabriella, 2020. "Information Technology and Political Engagement: Mixed Evidence from Uganda," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 82(4), pages 1321-1336.
    14. Hartwell, Christopher A. & Devinney, Timothy, 2021. "Populism, political risk, and pandemics: The challenges of political leadership for business in a post-COVID world," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(4).
    15. Schwaiger, Rene & Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Determinants of investor expectations and satisfaction. A study with financial professionals," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    16. Ambuehl, Sandro & Blesse, Sebastian & Doerrenberg, Philipp & Feldhaus, Christoph & Ockenfels, Axel, 2023. "Politicians' social welfare criteria - An experiment with German legislators," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-013, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    17. Hueber, Laura & Schwaiger, Rene, 2022. "Debiasing through experience sampling: The case of myopic loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 87-138.
    18. Alessio Terzi, 2021. "Economic Policy-Making Beyond GDP An Introduction," European Economy - Discussion Papers 142, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    19. Aseem Mahajan & Reuben Kline & Dustin Tingley, 2022. "Collective Risk and Distributional Equity in Climate Change Bargaining," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(1), pages 61-90, January.
    20. Anna Abalkina & Alexander Libman, 2020. "The real costs of plagiarism: Russian governors, plagiarized PhD theses, and infrastructure in Russian regions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2793-2820, December.
    21. Michael Razen & Michael Kirchler & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Determinants Of Prepaid Systems Of Healthcare Financing - A Worldwide Country-Level Perspective," Working Papers 2019-12, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.

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