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Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians

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  • Gabriel Leon

Abstract

Why do elected officials often suffer from political paralysis and fail to implement thebest policies available? This paper considers a new yet intuitive explanation thatfocuses on the quality of the politicians competing to replace the incumbent. Thekey insight is that a 'good' incumbent with preferences identical to those of arepresentative voter will want to keep corrupt politicians out of office; she may do soby distorting her policy choices to signal her type and win re-election. The value ofsignalling and staying in office increases with the fraction of corrupt types in thepopulation of politicians. Electing good types may therefore not be enough to ensurethat the best policies are implemented, especially when corrupt politicians arecommon. This provides a new explanation for why political failure is particularlysevere in corrupt democracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Leon, 2009. "Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 013, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:stieop:013
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    political agency; corruption; elections; term limits; economic reform; politician quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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