Are Efficiency Improvements In Government Transfer Policies Self‐Defeating In Political Equilibrium?

This paper studies an election game between two politicians, in which each provides income transfers to special‐interest groups in return for political contributions. It is shown that a move to a more inefficient form of transfers may lower the total excess burden created by these transfers, because the politicians are induced to reduce their provision of transfers. For the case in which the income transfers are indirectly provided as trade protection to import‐competing industries, a switch from production subsidies to tariffs as the form of protection reduces the equilibrium level of excess burden and makes both politicians better off.