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Elections and Deceptions: Theory and Experimental Evidence

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Author Info
Luca Corazzini
Sebastian Kube
Michel André Maréchal
Antonio Nicoló

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Abstract

The virtue of democratic elections has traditionally been seen in their role as a means of screening and sanctioning shirking public officials. This paper proposes a novel rationale for elections and political campaigns by considering heterogeneity in candidates' aversion to lying. We analyze theoretically and experimentally how democratic elections and campaigns influence the behavior of voters and their representatives. Our main insight is that candidates behave more benevolently when democratically elected than when exogenously appointed. Moreover, the results show that candidates feel more obliged to serve the public interest the higher their approval ratings are. Together, our results suggest that electoral competition and campaigns confer benefits beyond their function as a screening and sanctioning device.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW in its series IEW - Working Papers with number iewwp421.

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Date of creation: Jul 2009
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Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:421

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Related research
Keywords: Costs of Lying; Electoral Competition; Laboratory Experiment;

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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
C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Economics; Underlying Principles

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This page was last updated on 2009-11-19.

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