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Tying the Politicians’ Hands: The Optimal Limits to Representative Democracy

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Abstract

We study the optimal delegation problem which arises between the median voter (writer of the constitution) and the (future) incumbent politician when not only the state of the world and but also the politician’s type (preferred policy) are the policy-maker’s private information. We show that it is optimal to tie the hands of the politician by imposing him/her both a policy floor and a policy cap and delegating him/her the policy choice only in between. The delegation interval is shown to be the smaller the greater is the uncertainty about the politician’s type. These results apply outside the specific problem to which our model is applied here.

Suggested Citation

  • Didier Laussel, 2018. "Tying the Politicians’ Hands: The Optimal Limits to Representative Democracy," AMSE Working Papers 1803, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1803
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    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Giri Parameswaran & Hunter Rendleman, 2022. "Redistribution under general decision rules," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(1), pages 159-196, February.
    3. Arye L. Hillman & Ngo Long, 2022. "Immigrants as future voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 149-174, January.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General

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