IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00023038.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control: A Comment

Author

Listed:
  • Germán Gieczewski
  • Christopher Li

Abstract

We note and correct a flaw in the analysis of Ferejohn (1986)'s seminal model of electoral accountability. In the original solution, it is supposedly optimal for the voter to impose a stationary path of performance targets on officeholders. We show that, in fact, stationary paths are suboptimal; the voter can do better by choosing a path of performance targets that become increasingly lenient over time, which extracts more effort from the politician earlier on. We explicitly solve for the optimal performance targets for a class of examples and discuss the substantive implications of our exercise.

Suggested Citation

  • Germán Gieczewski & Christopher Li, 2024. "Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control: A Comment," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 19(3), pages 331-353, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00023038
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00023038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00023038
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00023038?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:now:jlqjps:100.00023038. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    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.