Paying politicians

Matthias Messner; Mattias K. Polborn

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.01.004

Paying politicians

Matthias Messner, Mattias K. Polborn

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions. Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates free-ride on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	2423-2445
Number of pages	23
Journal	Journal of Public Economics
Volume	88
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.01.004
State	Published - Dec 2004

Keywords

Citizen-candidate model
Political economy
Private provision of public goods
Wage for politicians

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Finance
Economics and Econometrics

Online availability

10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.01.004

Library availability

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title = "Paying politicians",

abstract = "We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions. Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates free-ride on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.",

keywords = "Citizen-candidate model, Political economy, Private provision of public goods, Wage for politicians",

author = "Matthias Messner and Polborn, {Mattias K.}",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank seminar audiences at the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario, as well as Antonio Cabrales, Jim Davies, Srihari Govindan, Ig Horstmann, Tilman Klumpp, Massimo Morelli, Mike Peters, Al Slivinski, Gopal Vasudev and in particular two anonymous referees and the editor for helpful comments. Polborn would like to thank the social Science and Humanities Research council of Canada for financial support. Copyright: Copyright 2004 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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language = "English (US)",

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PY - 2004/12

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N2 - We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions. Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates free-ride on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.

AB - We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions. Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates free-ride on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.

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KW - Private provision of public goods

KW - Wage for politicians

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Paying politicians

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Online availability

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