Making Elections Work: Accountability with Selection and Controls

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anesi, Vincent; Buisseret, Peter
• 署名单位: University of Luxembourg; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200311
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 616-644
• 关键词: policy; politicians; bureaucrats; competence

摘要

We study the limits of dynamic electoral accountability when voters are uncertain about politicians' characteristics (adverse selection) and their actions (moral hazard). Existing work argues that voters cannot achieve their first-best payoff. This is attributed to inherent deficiencies of the electoral contract, including voters' inability to precommit, and the restriction to a binary retention-replacement decision. We provide conditions under which voters can, despite these constraints, obtain arbitrarily close to the first-best payoff in an equilibrium of the electoral interaction. Our paper resolves that there need not be a trade-off between selection and control. (JEL D72, D82)