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Elections, Contracts and Markets

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Author Info
Gersbach, Hans
Muller, Markus

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Abstract

As the performance of long-term projects is not observable in the short run politicians may pander to public opinion. To solve this problem, we propose a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to predict the long-term performance of a policy, while threshold contracts stipulate a price level on the political information market that a politician must reach to have the right to stand for reelection. Reelection thresholds are offered by politicians during campaigns. We show that, on balance, the triple mechanism increases social welfare.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5717.

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Date of creation: Jun 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5717

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Keywords: democracy elections information markets threshold contracts triple mechanism

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information

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References listed on IDEAS
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Urs von Arx & Andreas Schäfer, 2007. "The Influence of Pension Funds on Corporate Governance," Economics working paper series 07/63, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  2. Hans Gersbach, 2007. "The Global Refunding System and Climate Change," Economics working paper series 07/62, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ulrich Brandt-Pollmann & Ralph Winkler & Sebastian Sager & Ulf Moslener & Johannes P. Schlöder, 2006. "Numerical solution of optimal control problems with constant control delays," Economics working paper series 06/59, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  4. Theresa Fahrenberger & Hans Gersbach, 2007. "Minority Voting and Long-term Decisions," Economics working paper series 07/70, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Simone Valente, 2007. "Human Capital, Resource Constraints and Intergenerational Fairness," Economics working paper series 07/68, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  6. Christoph Heinzel & Ralph Winkler, 2007. "The role of environmental and technology policies in the transition to a low-carbon energy industry," Economics working paper series 07/71, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  7. Hans Gersbach & Ralph Winkler, 2007. "On the Design of Global Refunding and Climate Change," Economics working paper series 07/69, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich, revised Jul 2007. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Volker Hahn, 2007. "Information Acquisition by Price-Setters and Monetary Policy," Economics working paper series 07/73, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
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