IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eca/wpaper/2013-143015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Benchmarking Politicians

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Estache
  • Renaud Foucart

Abstract

We study a political system in which voters can optimally pick between political platforms,but cannot screen the quality of individual politicians associated with these platforms.A bad individual achievement can correspond to either incompetence (adverse selection) orcorruption (moral hazard). Information could improve, if independent experts assess achievementsas compared to commitments, allowing independent judges to investigate possible corruption.We find that while good experts are always beneficial as they increase transparency,the impact of the quality of judges is ambiguous. Above a threshold, with risk-averse socialplanners, good judges increase the incentive-compatible punishment of politicians, at the costof possible judiciary mistakes.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Estache & Renaud Foucart, 2013. "Benchmarking Politicians," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2013-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/143015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/143015/1/2013-20-ESTACHE_FOUCART-benchmarking.pdf
    File Function: 2013-20-ESTACHE_FOUCART-benchmarking
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. AlÌcia Adserý, 2003. "Are You Being Served? Political Accountability and Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 445-490, October.
    2. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2007. "Candidate quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 7-27, February.
    3. Kotakorpi, Kaisa & Poutvaara, Panu, 2011. "Pay for politicians and candidate selection: An empirical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 877-885, August.
    4. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    5. Myerson Roger B., 1993. "Effectiveness of Electoral Systems for Reducing Government Corruption: A Game-Theoretic Analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 118-132, January.
    6. Johannes Becker & Andreas Peichl & Johannes Rincke, 2009. "Politicians’ outside earnings and electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 379-394, September.
    7. Smart, Michael & Sturm, Daniel M., 2013. "Term limits and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-102.
    8. Smart, Michael & Sturm, Daniel M., 2013. "Term limits and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-102.
    9. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Disclosure by Politicians," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 179-209, April.
    10. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1998. "Sources of Inefficiency in a Representative Democracy: A Dynamic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 139-156, March.
    11. McCubbins, Mathew D & Noll, Roger G & Weingast, Barry R, 1987. "Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 243-277, Fall.
    12. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    13. Anne van Aaken & Lars P. Feld & Stefan Voigt, 2010. "Do Independent Prosecutors Deter Political Corruption? An Empirical Evaluation across Seventy-eight Countries," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 12(1), pages 204-244.
    14. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 2003. "Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1176-1206, September.
    15. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1999. "Separation of Regulators Against Collusive Behavior," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 232-262, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Estache, Antonio & Foucart, Renaud, 2018. "The scope and limits of accounting and judicial courts intervention in inefficient public procurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 95-106.
    2. Antonio Estache & Renaud Foucart, 2016. "Corruption and Incompetence in Public Procurement," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-05, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Andreas Peichl & Nico Pestel & Sebastian Siegloch, 2013. "The politicians’ wage gap: insights from German members of parliament," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 653-676, September.
    4. Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2020. "Immunity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 531-564, May.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2012. "Immunity," Working Papers 12-17, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," Working Papers 13-04, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," CESifo Working Paper Series 4445, CESifo.
    5. Mario Gilli & Elena Manzoni, 2019. "Populism, the Backlash against Ruling Politicians and the Possible Malfunctioning of Representative Democracy," Working Papers 417, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2019.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    7. Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2021. "Separation of powers with ideological parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 333-382, July.
    8. Ferraz, Claudio & Finan, Frederico S., 2007. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption in Local Governments: Evidence from Audit Reports," IZA Discussion Papers 2843, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Braendle, Thomas, 2013. "Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?," Working papers 2013/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    10. Kotakorpi, Kaisa & Poutvaara, Panu, 2011. "Pay for politicians and candidate selection: An empirical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 877-885, August.
    11. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    12. Gavoille, Nicolas & Verschelde, Marijn, 2017. "Electoral competition and political selection: An analysis of the activity of French deputies, 1958–2012," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 180-195.
    13. Timothy Besley, 2004. "Joseph Schumpeter Lecture: Paying Politicians: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 193-215, 04/05.
    14. Daniel J. Smith & George R. Crowley & J. Sebastian Leguizamon, 2021. "Long live the doge? Death as a term limit on Venetian chief executives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 333-359, September.
    15. Estache, Antonio & Wren-Lewis, Liam, 2010. "What Anti-Corruption Policy Can Learn from Theories of Sector Regulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 8082, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Justin Fox, 2007. "Government transparency and policymaking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 23-44, April.
    17. Ferraz, Claudio & Finan, Frederico S., 2008. "Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 3411, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Ruben Enikolopov, 2011. "Are Bureaucrats Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," Working Papers w0165, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    19. Tsur, Yacov, 2022. "Political tenure, term limits and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2011. "Anti-Corruption Policy in Theories of Sector Regulation," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman & Tina Søreide (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume Two, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eca:wpaper:2013/143015. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/arulbbe.html .

    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.