IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gms/wpaper/1057.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • John Duggan

    (Department of Political Science, University of Rochester)

  • Cesar Martinelli

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University)

Abstract

We consider a canonical two-period model of elections with adverse selection (hidden preferences) and moral hazard (hidden actions), in which neither voters nor politicians can commit to future choices. We prove existence of electoral equilibria, and we show that office holders mix between “taking it easy†and “going for broke†in the first period. Even in the presence of a finite horizon, we establish that increasing office motivation leads to arbitrarily high expected policy outcomes. We conclude that the mechanism of electoral accountability has the potential to achieve responsiveness of democratic politics when electoral incentives are sufficiently large.

Suggested Citation

  • John Duggan & Cesar Martinelli, 2015. "Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy," Working Papers 1057, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.gmu.edu/schools/chss/economics/icesworkingpapers.gmu.edu/pdf/1057.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    2. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    3. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316.
    4. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    5. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    6. Bernhardt, Dan & Duggan, John & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "The Case for Responsible Parties," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(4), pages 570-587, November.
    7. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    8. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    9. Scott Ashworth, 2005. "Reputational Dynamics and Political Careers," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 441-466, October.
    10. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Sundaram, Rangarajan K., 1998. "Optimal Retention in Agency Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 293-323, October.
    11. John E. Roemer, 1997. "Political-economic equilibrium when parties represent constituents: The unidimensional case," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 14(4), pages 479-502.
    12. John Duggan & César Martinelli, 2017. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: Accountability, Commitment, and Responsiveness," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 916-984, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Duggan, John, 2017. "Term limits and bounds on policy responsiveness in dynamic elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 426-463.
    2. Merzoni, Guido & Trombetta, Federico, 2022. "Pandering and state-specific costs of mismatch in political agency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 132-143.
    3. S. Borağan Aruoba & Allan Drazen & Razvan Vlaicu, 2019. "A Structural Model Of Electoral Accountability," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 517-545, May.
    4. Hao Hong & Tsz-Ning Wong, 2020. "Authoritarian election as an incentive scheme," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 460-493, July.
    5. Cesar Martinelli & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2017. "Communication and Information in Games of Collective Decision: A Survey of Experimental Results," Working Papers 1065, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    6. Cesar Martinelli, 2022. "Accountability and Grand Corruption," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 645-679, November.
    7. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2021. "A Note on Asymmetric Policies: Pandering and State-specific Costs of Mismatch in Political Agency," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2102, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    2. Duggan, John, 2017. "Term limits and bounds on policy responsiveness in dynamic elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 426-463.
    3. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    4. Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2021. "Separation of powers with ideological parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 333-382, July.
    5. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    6. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John, 2008. "A Dynamic Model of Democratic Elections in Multidimensional Policy Spaces," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 269-299, October.
    7. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    8. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2015. "Mediocracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-44.
    9. Binswanger, Johannes & Prüfer, Jens, 2012. "Democracy, populism, and (un)bounded rationality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 358-372.
    10. Gavoille, Nicolas, 2018. "Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 134-148.
    11. Le Borgne, Eric & Lockwood, Ben, 2000. "Candidate Entry, Screening, and the Political Budget Cycle," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 582, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    12. Francisco Rodríguez & Eduardo Zambrano, 2022. "Monotone comparative statics in the Calvert–Wittman model," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 10(1), pages 105-116, May.
    13. David K Levine & Salvatore Modica & Aldo Rustichini, 2023. "Cooperating Through Leaders," Levine's Working Paper Archive 11694000000000112, David K. Levine.
    14. Gerard Padró i Miquel & Erik Snowberg, 2012. "The lesser evil: Executive accountability with partisan supporters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(1), pages 19-45, January.
    15. Klaas Beniers & Robert Dur, 2007. "Politicians’ motivation, political culture, and electoral competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 29-54, February.
    16. Holger Sieg & Chamna Yoon, 2017. "Estimating Dynamic Games of Electoral Competition to Evaluate Term Limits in US Gubernatorial Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1824-1857, July.
    17. Silvia Fedeli & Francesco Forte, 2011. "The law of survival of the political class:an analysis of the Italian Parliament (1946-2010)," Working Papers in Public Economics 146, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    18. Klingelhöfer, Jan, 2011. "Lexicographic Voting," VfS Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48701, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Aragonès, Enriqueta & Sánchez-Pagés, Santiago, 2009. "A theory of participatory democracy based on the real case of Porto Alegre," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 56-72, January.
    20. Emanuele Brancati & Silvia Fedeli & Francesco Forte & Leone Leonida, 2022. "Opportunism and MPs’ chances of re-election: an analysis of political transformism in the Italian parliament," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 273-308, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1057. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shams Bahabib (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.