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How Politicians Make Decisions: A Political Choice Experiment

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  • Enrique Fatas
  • Tibor Neugebauer
  • Pilar Tamborero

Abstract

The present paper reports on a political choice experiment with elected real-world politicians. A questionnaire on political and public issues is taken to examine whether prospect theory predicts the responses of experts from the field better than rational choice theory. The results indicate that framing effects exist but that expertise may weaken the deviation from rational choice.
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  • Enrique Fatas & Tibor Neugebauer & Pilar Tamborero, 2007. "How Politicians Make Decisions: A Political Choice Experiment," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 167-196, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jeczfn:v:92:y:2007:i:2:p:167-196
    DOI: 10.1007/s00712-007-0264-4
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Kevin Arceneaux & Johanna Dunaway & Stuart Soroka, 2018. "Elites are people, too: The effects of threat sensitivity on policymakers’ spending priorities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-8, April.
    3. Steffen Huck & Wieland Müller, 2012. "Allais for all: Revisiting the paradox in a large representative sample," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 261-293, June.
    4. Gijs van de Kuilen & Peter P. Wakker, 2011. "The Midweight Method to Measure Attitudes Toward Risk and Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 582-598, March.
    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. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Sorokin, Constantine & Zakharov, Alexei, 2018. "Vote-motivated candidates," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 232-254.
    9. Pavlo Blavatskyy & Valentyn Panchenko & Andreas Ortmann, 2023. "How common is the common-ratio effect?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(2), pages 253-272, April.
    10. 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.
    11. Moshe Levy, 2022. "An evolutionary explanation of the Allais paradox," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1545-1574, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    subject pool effect; subject surrogacy; expected utility theory; prospect theory; C91; D72; D81;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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