IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Inefficient Redistribution and Inefficient Redistributive Politics

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Dan Kovenock
  • Brian Roberson

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of inefficient redistribution in Myerson’s (1993) model of redistributive politics. Regardless of the absolute levels of the efficiency of political parties’ transfers to different voter segments, parties have incentive to (stochastically) shift resources away from voter segments with large relative efficiency gaps between the two parties’ transfers towards voter segments with smaller relative efficiency gaps. Because of this dependence on relative, and not absolute, levels of efficiency, the parties’ optimal strategies may lead to large discrepancies between the sum of the budgetary transfers and the sum of the effective transfers. At the extreme, in the spirit of Magee, Brock, and Young (1989), we obtain “black hole” inefficiency. When the model is extended to allow for loyal voter segments and loyalty to a party is positively related to the efficiency of that party’s transfers to the segment, the incentives leading to black hole inefficiency become even stronger.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.krannert.purdue.edu/programs/phd/Working-papers-series/2007/1206.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Purdue University, Department of Economics in its series Purdue University Economics Working Papers with number 1206.

as
in new window

Length: 11 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2007
Handle: RePEc:pur:prukra:1206
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Krannert Building, West Lafayette, IN 47907

Web page: http://www.krannert.purdue.edu/programs/phd

More information through EDIRC

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
  • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Nicolas Sahuguet & Nicola Persico, 2006. "Campaign spending regulation in a model of redistributive politics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(1), pages 95-124, 05.
  2. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2008. "Electoral Poaching and Party Identification," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 275-302, July.
  3. Dan Kovenock & Michael R. Baye & Casper G. de Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 291-305.
  4. Konrad, Kai A., 2002. "Investment in the absence of property rights; the role of incumbency advantages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1521-1537, September.
  5. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1989. "Politically Contestable Rents And Transfers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 17-39, 03.
  6. Acemoglu, Daron & Robinson, James A, 1999. "Inefficient Redistribution," CEPR Discussion Papers 2122, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. Clark, Derek J. & Riis, Christian, 2000. "Allocation efficiency in a competitive bribery game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-124, May.
  8. Lien, Da-Hsiang Donald, 1990. "Corruption and allocation efficiency," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 153-164, July.
  9. Brian Roberson, 2006. "The Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, September.
  10. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
  2. Glaeser, Edward L. & Ponzetto, Giacomo A.M., 2014. "Shrouded costs of government: The political economy of state and local public pensions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 89-105.
  3. Pierre C. Boyer & Kai A. Konrad, 2014. "Targeted Campaign Competition, Loyal Voters, and Supermajorities," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2014-14, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
  4. Kovenock, Dan & Roberson, Brian, 2011. "Non-partisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts and policy outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 728-739.
  5. Marcin Dziubiński, 2013. "Non-symmetric discrete General Lotto games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(4), pages 801-833, November.
  6. Stefan Homburg, 2011. "Colonel Blotto und seine ökonomischen Anwendungen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, 02.
  7. Esslinger, Christoph & Boyer, Pierre, 2015. "Public debt and the political economy of reforms," Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113107, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pur:prukra:1206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Krannert PHD)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.