Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T07:11:10.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Experimental Study of Electoral Incentives and Institutional Choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2015

Jonathan Woon
Jonathan Woon*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, and Faculty, Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory; email: woon@pitt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I investigate the extent to which reputational incentives affect policy choices in the context of a controlled laboratory experiment. In theory, asymmetric information and outcome unobservability undermine electoral delegation by creating incentives for politicians to pander. Under the right conditions, it may be preferable to remove such incentives by removing accountability altogether. The data suggest that subjects playing the role of politicians fail to take advantage of voters even though voters indeed create the predicted electoral incentives, albeit in a weaker form than predicted by the theory. When given the choice of institutions via a novel elicitation method, subjects prefer to retain electoral accountability or to make decisions themselves through direct democracy, even though both institutions yield lower expected payoffs than delegation to unaccountable agents.

Keywords

Accountabilitypolitical economyincentiveslaboratory experiment
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Winter 2014 , pp. 181 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher H., and Bartels, Larry M.. 2004. “Blind Retrospection: Electoral Responses to Drought, Flu, and Shark Attacks.” Working Paper, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Tabellini, Guido. 2007. “Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task.” American Economic Review 97 (1): 169–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott. 2005. “Reputational Dynamics and Political Careers.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 21 (2): 441–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott, and Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2008. “Electoral Selection, Strategic Challenger Entry, and the Incumbency Advantage.” Journal of Politics 70 (4): 1006–25.Google Scholar
Banks, Jeffrey S., and Sundaram, Rangarajan K.. 1993. Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in a Repeated Elections Model. In Political Economy: Institutions, Competition, and Representation: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics, ed. Barnett, William A., Hinich, Melvin, and Schofield, Norman. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1991. “Constituency Opinion and Congressional Policy Making: The Reagan Defense Buildup.” American Political Science Review 85 (2): 457–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2009. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy. 2005. “Political Selection.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (3): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, Colin F., Ho, Teck-Hua, and Chong, Juin-Kuan. 2004. “A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (3): 861–98.Google Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, and Shotts, Kenneth W.. 2007. “When Do Elections Encourage Ideological Rigidity?” American Political Science Review 101 (2): 273–88.Google Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, Herron, Michael C., and Shotts, Kenneth W.. 2001. “Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policymaking.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 532–50.Google Scholar
Dal Bó, Pedro, Foster, Andrew, and Putterman, Louis. 2010. “Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy.” American Economic Review 100 (5): 2205–29.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K Anders, and Simon, Herbert A.. 1998. “How to Study Thinking in Everyday Life: Contrasting Think-Aloud Protocols with Descriptions and Explanations of Thinking.” Mind, Culture, and Activity 5 (3): 178–86.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., MacKuen, Michael B., and Stimson, James A.. 2002. The Macro Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1999. Electoral Accountability and the Control of Politicians: Selecting Good Types Versus Sanctioning Poor Performance. In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, eds. Przeworski, A., Stokes, S. C., and Manin, B.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1986. “Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control.” Public Choice 50 (1): 5–25.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fischbacher, Urs. 2007. “z-Tree: Zurich Toolbox for Ready-Made Economics Experiments.” Experimental Economics 10 (2): 171–8.Google Scholar
Fox, Justin. 2007. “Government Transparency and Policymaking.” Public Choice 131 (1): 23–44.Google Scholar
Fox, Justin, and Shotts, Kenneth W.. 2009. “Delegates or Trustees? A Theory of Political Accountability.” Journal of Politics 71 (4): 1225–37.Google Scholar
Gordon, Sanford C., Huber, Gregory A., and Landa, Dimitri. 2007. “Challenger Entry and Voter Learning.” American Political Science Review 101 (2): 303–20.Google Scholar
Groseclose, Tim, and McCarty, Nolan. 2001. “The Politics of Blame: Bargaining Before an Audience.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (1): 100–19.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, Malhotra, Neil, and Mo, Cecilia Hyunjung. 2010. “Irrelevant Events Affect Voters’ Evaluation of Government Performance.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (29): 12804–09.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew W., and Malhotra, Neil. 2009. “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy.” American Political Science Review 103 (3): 387–406.Google Scholar
Hibbing, John R., and Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs About How Government Should Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huber, Gregory A., Hill, Seth J., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Sources of Bias in Retrospective Decision-Making: Experimental Evidence on Voters’ Limitations in Controlling Incumbents.” American Political Science Review 106 (4): 720–41.Google Scholar
Key, V.O. Jr., 1966. The Responsible Electorate. Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Gerald. 1971. “Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896–1964.” American Political Science Review 65 (1): 131–43.Google Scholar
Landa, Dimitri. 2010. “Selection Incentives and Accountability Traps: A Laboratory Experiment.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Washington, DC).Google Scholar
Landa, Dimitri, and Duell, Dominik. Forthcoming “Social Identity and the Nature of Electoral Representation.” American Journal of Political Science.Google Scholar
Maskin, Eric, and Tirole, Jean. 2004. “The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government.” American Economic Review 94 (4): 1034–54.Google Scholar
Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1963. “Consituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57 (1): 45–56.Google Scholar
Nagel, Rosemarie. 1995. “Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study.” American Economic Review 85 (5): 1313–26.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y.. 1983. “The Effects of Public Opinion on Policy.” American Political Science Review 77 (1): 175–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patty, John W., and Weber, Roberto A.. 2007. “Letting the Good Times Roll: A Theory of Voter Inference and Experimental Evidence.” Public Choice 130 (3): 293–310.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. 1955. “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 69 (1): 99–118.Google Scholar
Stasavage, David. 2004. “Open-Door or Closed-Door? Transparency in Domestic and International Bargaining.” International Organization 58 (4): 667–703.Google Scholar
Woon, Jonathan. 2012. “Democratic Accountability and Retrospective Voting: A Laboratory Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4): 913–30.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Woon supplementary material

Appendix

Download Woon supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 431.2 KB