To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Iaryczower, Matias; Lewis, Garrett; Shum, Matthew
• 署名单位: Princeton University; California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.08.007
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 230-244
• 关键词: Structural estimation; strategic voting; common values; bureaucrats; politicians

摘要

In this paper, we address empirically the trade-offs involved in choosing between bureaucrats and politicians. In order to do this, we map institutions of selection and retention of public officials to the type of public officials they induce. We do this by specifying a collective decision-making model, and exploiting its equilibrium information to obtain estimates of the unobservable types. We focus on criminal decisions across US states' Supreme Courts. We find that justices that are shielded from voters' influence (bureaucrats) on average (i) have better information, (ii) are more likely to change their preconceived opinions about a case, and (iii) are more effective (make less mistakes) than their elected counterparts (politicians). We evaluate how performance would change if the courts replaced majority rule with unanimity rule. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.