Do Elections Always Motivate Incumbents? Experimentation vs. Career Concerns

March 1, 2003

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Format: Chicago

Ben Lockwood, and Eric Le Borgne. Do Elections Always Motivate Incumbents? Experimentation vs. Career Concerns, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2003) accessed December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper studies a principal-agent model of the relationship between an incumbent officeholder and the electorate, where the officeholder is initially uninformed about her ability. If officeholder effort and ability interact in the "production function" that determines performance in office, then an officeholder has an incentive to experiment-that is, 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 offset the positive "career-concerns" effect of elections on effort. Moreover, when this occurs, appointment of officeholders may Pareto-dominate elections.

Subject: Moral hazard, Revenue administration, Tax incentives, Technology

Keywords: Disp-formula id, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

32
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2003/057
Stock No:

WPIEA0572003
ISBN:

9781451847796
ISSN:

1018-5941

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