Le Borgne , Eric and Lockwood, Ben (2000) Do elections always motivate incumbents? Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. Warwick economic research papers (No.580).

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Abstract

This paper studies a principal-agent model of the relationship between office-holders and the electorate, where the office-holder is initially uninformed about herability (following Holmström, 1999). If office-holder effort and ability interact in the “production function” that determines performance in office, then an office-holder has an incentive to experiment, i.e. raise effort so that performance becomes a more accurate signal of her ability. Elections reduce the experimentation effect, and the reduction in this effect may more than o¤set the positive “career concerns” effect of elections on effort. Moreover, when this occurs, appointment of officials (random
selection from the citizenry and tenure) may Pareto-dominate elections.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Alternative Title:	The career concerns of politicians: efficiency in a representative democracy?
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Business cycles -- Political aspects, Career development, Elections, Voting research, Tournaments (Graph theory)
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Official Date:	November 2000
Dates:	Date Event November 2000 Published
Number:	No.580
Number of Pages:	31
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Description:	First version, April 2000; this version, November 2000

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