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Electoral control and the human capital of politicians

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  • Buisseret, Peter
  • Prato, Carlo

Abstract

We develop a model of electoral control in which politicians in a legislative body allocate their time between providing constituency services to their voters, and pursuing the objectives of legislative cliques and factions. While a politician's human capital symmetrically increases his inherent ability to engage in both endeavors, our analysis uncovers an equilibrium bias towards the latter. As a result of the strategic interdependencies among legislators, a trade-off arises between politicians' human capital and voters' ability to exert electoral control. We characterize conditions under which an increase in the human capital of politicians makes voters worse off by encouraging all politicians to divert their attention away from their constituents.

Suggested Citation

  • Buisseret, Peter & Prato, Carlo, 2016. "Electoral control and the human capital of politicians," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 34-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:98:y:2016:i:c:p:34-55
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2016.04.011
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    Cited by:

    1. Julio Alberto Ramos-Pastrana, 2017. "Who's Getting the Office? Autocracy And Elected Politicians' Career Path: Evidence from the Mexican States," CAEPR Working Papers 2017-008, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    2. Fehrler, Sebastian & Fischbacher, Urs & Schneider, Maik T., 2016. "Who Runs? Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics," IZA Discussion Papers 10258, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Pique, Ricardo, 2019. "Higher pay, worse outcomes? The impact of mayoral wages on local government quality in Peru," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Prasenjit Banerjee & Vegard Iversen & Sandip Mitra & Antonio Nicolò & Kunal Sen, 2018. "Politicians and Their Promises in an Uncertain World: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1806, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okazawa, Ryosuke, 2018. "Why do voters elect less qualified candidates?," MPRA Paper 89215, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Lindsey Gailmard, 2022. "Electoral accountability and political competence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(2), pages 236-261, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electoral control; Competence; Political representation; Multidistrict elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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