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Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy

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  • John Duggan

    (Department of Political Science, University of Rochester)

  • Cesar Martinelli

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University)

Abstract

We consider a canonical two-period model of elections with adverse selection (hidden preferences) and moral hazard (hidden actions), in which neither voters nor politicians can commit to future choices. We prove existence of electoral equilibria, and we show that office holders mix between “taking it easy†and “going for broke†in the first period. Even in the presence of a finite horizon, we establish that increasing office motivation leads to arbitrarily high expected policy outcomes. We conclude that the mechanism of electoral accountability has the potential to achieve responsiveness of democratic politics when electoral incentives are sufficiently large.

Suggested Citation

  • John Duggan & Cesar Martinelli, 2015. "Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy," Working Papers 1057, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1057
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Duggan, John, 2017. "Term limits and bounds on policy responsiveness in dynamic elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 426-463.
    2. Merzoni, Guido & Trombetta, Federico, 2022. "Pandering and state-specific costs of mismatch in political agency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 132-143.
    3. S. Borağan Aruoba & Allan Drazen & Razvan Vlaicu, 2019. "A Structural Model Of Electoral Accountability," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 517-545, May.
    4. Hao Hong & Tsz-Ning Wong, 2020. "Authoritarian election as an incentive scheme," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 460-493, July.
    5. Cesar Martinelli & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2017. "Communication and Information in Games of Collective Decision: A Survey of Experimental Results," Working Papers 1065, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    6. Cesar Martinelli, 2022. "Accountability and Grand Corruption," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 645-679, November.
    7. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2021. "A Note on Asymmetric Policies: Pandering and State-specific Costs of Mismatch in Political Agency," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis2102, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).

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