Polarization and Political Selection

Does political polarization among voters affect the quality of elected officials? We examine the question both theoretically and empirically in the context where expertise and intrinsic motivation are crucial determinants of the quality. In our model, high quality candidates prefer to spend time on their current careers over electoral campaigning. In a polarized electorate, however, voters cast their votes mainly based on candidates' party affiliations, reducing electoral campaign effort in equilibrium. Hence under higher polarization among voters, higher quality candidates are more likely to run for high office and to get elected. Our testable prediction is that electorates with higher polarization select candidates who perform better. We take the predictions to data on judges' performance constructed from the opinions of all state supreme court judges working between 1965 and 1994. We find that judges who joined the court when polarization was high write higher-quality decisions (receiving more citations from other judges) than judges who joined when polarization was low.