Paying politicians

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 c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of public economics 2004-12, Vol.88 (12), p.2423-2445
Main Authors: Messner, Matthias, Polborn, Mattias K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizen–candidate model
Political economy
Private provision of public goods
Wage for politicians
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0047-2727
1879-2316
DOI:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.01.004