IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i7p1824-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Dynamic Games of Electoral Competition to Evaluate Term Limits in US Gubernatorial Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Holger Sieg
  • Chamna Yoon

Abstract

This paper shows how to identify and estimate, using standard semi-parametric techniques, a class of dynamic games with perfect monitoring, that have been at the frontier of recent research in political economy. The empirical analysis provides novel quantitative insights into the trade-off that voters face between ideology and ability, the differences in ability and ideology among parties and states, and the differences in preferences between political candidates and voters. We analyze the consequences of term limits and quantify their relative importance. Specifically, we characterize conditions under which term limits improve voters' welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Holger Sieg & Chamna Yoon, 2017. "Estimating Dynamic Games of Electoral Competition to Evaluate Term Limits in US Gubernatorial Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1824-1857, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:7:p:1824-57
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20150566
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=HkwVzrXZPbAEbBl6aHbPIwrl9Rw7lwI1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=jo-iYlHHUExbGu9D53UzIZY8xSWzr6hK
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=YsGljUDMVUOS5EPSdlT9y6AE9YHcWtL0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ariel Pakes & Michael Ostrovsky & Steven Berry, 2007. "Simple estimators for the parameters of discrete dynamic games (with entry/exit examples)," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 373-399, June.
    2. Merlo, Antonio, 1997. "Bargaining over Governments in a Stochastic Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 101-131, February.
    3. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    4. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    5. Daniel Diermeier & Hulya Eraslan & Antonio Merlo, 2003. "A Structural Model of Government Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 27-70, January.
    6. Pedro Carneiro & Karsten T. Hansen & James J. Heckman, 2003. "Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College," NBER Working Papers 9546, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Sundaram, Rangarajan K., 1998. "Optimal Retention in Agency Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 293-323, October.
    8. Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2010. "Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1110-1150.
    9. Coate, Stephen & Conlin, Michael & Moro, Andrea, 2008. "The performance of pivotal-voter models in small-scale elections: Evidence from Texas liquor referenda," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 582-596, April.
    10. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John, 2008. "A Dynamic Model of Democratic Elections in Multidimensional Policy Spaces," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 269-299, October.
    11. Carneiro, Pedro & Hansen, Karsten T. & Heckman, James J., 2003. "Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice," IZA Discussion Papers 767, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    13. Gautam Gowrisankaran & Matthew F. Mitchell & Andrea Moro, 2008. "Electoral Design and Voter Welfare from the U.S. Senate: Evidence from a Dynamic Selection Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, January.
    14. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    15. Daniel, Kermit & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Term Limits and Electoral Competitiveness: Evidence from California's State Legislative Races," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 90(1-4), pages 165-184, March.
    16. Yingyao Hu & Matthew Shum, 2008. "Identifying Dynamic Games with Serially-Correlated Unobservables," Economics Working Paper Archive 546, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    17. Pedro Carneiro & Karsten T. Hansen & James J. Heckman, 2003. "2001 Lawrence R. Klein Lecture Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 361-422, May.
    18. Arianna Degan & Antonio Merlo, 2011. "A Structural Model Of Turnout And Voting In Multiple Elections," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-245, April.
    19. Enriqueta Aragonès & Thomas Palfrey & Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Political Reputations and Campaign Promises," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(4), pages 846-884, June.
    20. Elena Krasnokutskaya, 2011. "Identification and Estimation of Auction Models with Unobserved Heterogeneity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 293-327.
    21. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    22. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    23. David P. Myatt, 2007. "On the Theory of Strategic Voting -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 255-281.
    24. Martin Pesendorfer & Philipp Schmidt-Dengler, 2008. "Asymptotic Least Squares Estimators for Dynamic Games -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 901-928.
    25. Bernhardt, Dan & Dubey, Sangita & Hughson, Eric, 2004. "Term limits and pork barrel politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2383-2422, December.
    26. Antonio Merlo & Xun Tang, 2012. "Identification and Estimation of Stochastic Bargaining Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(4), pages 1563-1604, July.
    27. Claire S. H. Lim, 2013. "Preferences and Incentives of Appointed and Elected Public Officials: Evidence from State Trial Court Judges," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1360-1397, June.
    28. Alesina, Alberto, 1988. "Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 796-805, September.
    29. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    30. Scott Ashworth, 2005. "Reputational Dynamics and Political Careers," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 441-466, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chauvin, Juan Pablo & Tricaud, Clemence, 2022. "Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Response," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12411, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Daniel J. Smith & George R. Crowley & J. Sebastian Leguizamon, 2021. "Long live the doge? Death as a term limit on Venetian chief executives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 333-359, September.
    3. Tsur, Yacov, 2022. "Political tenure, term limits and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Resource windfalls and public debt: A political economy perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    5. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2018. "Resource Windfalls and Public Debt: The Role of Political Myopia," OxCarre Working Papers 205, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Yingyao Hu & Yi Xin, 2019. "Identi?cation and estimation of dynamic structural models with unobserved choices," CeMMAP working papers CWP35/19, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2023. "Can resource windfalls reduce corruption? The role of term limits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Hu, Yingyao & Xin, Yi, 2024. "Identification and estimation of dynamic structural models with unobserved choices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 242(2).
    9. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2017. "Political Myopia, Public Debt," OxCarre Working Papers 200, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    10. Marcel Henkel, Eunjee Kwon, Pierre Magontier, 2022. "The Unintended Consequences of Post-Disaster Policies for Spatial Sorting," Diskussionsschriften credresearchpaper37, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED.
    11. Keppo, Jussi & Satopää, Ville A., 2024. "Bayesian herd detection for dynamic data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 285-301.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    2. Duggan, John, 2017. "Term limits and bounds on policy responsiveness in dynamic elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 426-463.
    3. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    4. Jean Guillaume Forand & John Duggan, 2013. "Markovian Elections," Working Papers 1305, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2013.
    5. S. Borağan Aruoba & Allan Drazen & Razvan Vlaicu, 2019. "A Structural Model Of Electoral Accountability," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 517-545, May.
    6. Smart, Michael & Sturm, Daniel M., 2013. "Term limits and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-102.
    7. Per G. Fredriksson & Khawaja A. Mamun, 2014. "Tobacco Politics and Electoral Accountability in the United States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 4-34, January.
    8. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2018. "Resource Windfalls and Public Debt: The Role of Political Myopia," OxCarre Working Papers 205, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Iaryczower, Matias & Lewis, Garrett & Shum, Matthew, 2013. "To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 230-244.
    10. John Duggan & César Martinelli, 2020. "Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(627), pages 675-715.
    11. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    12. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Resource windfalls and public debt: A political economy perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang & Patrick L Warren, 2013. "Party Politics, Governors, and Economic Policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 106-126, July.
    14. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.
    15. Kengo Kato & Yuya Sasaki & Takuya Ura, 2021. "Robust inference in deconvolution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 109-142, January.
    16. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2017. "Political Myopia, Public Debt," OxCarre Working Papers 200, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    17. Daniel J. Smith & George R. Crowley & J. Sebastian Leguizamon, 2021. "Long live the doge? Death as a term limit on Venetian chief executives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 333-359, September.
    18. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John, 2008. "A Dynamic Model of Democratic Elections in Multidimensional Policy Spaces," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 269-299, October.
    19. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    20. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C57 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Econometrics of Games and Auctions
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:7:p:1824-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.