IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v121y2020icp146-168.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A theory of decisive leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Bernheim, B. Douglas
  • Bodoh-Creed, Aaron L.

Abstract

We present a theory that rationalizes voters' preferences for decisive leaders. Greater decisiveness entails an inclination to reach decisions more quickly conditional on fixed information. Although speed can be good or bad, agency problems between voters and politicians create preferences among voters for leaders who perceive high costs of delay and have little uncertainty about how to weigh different aspects of the decision problem, and hence who make decisions more rapidly than typical voters. Officials who aspire to higher office therefore signal decisiveness by accelerating decisions. In elections, candidates with reputations for greater decisiveness prevail despite making smaller compromises, and therefore earn larger rents from office holding.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernheim, B. Douglas & Bodoh-Creed, Aaron L., 2020. "A theory of decisive leadership," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 146-168.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:121:y:2020:i:c:p:146-168
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.01.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825620300142
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2020.01.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. ,, 2009. "Choice deferral and ambiguity aversion," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(2), June.
    2. B. Douglas Bernheim & Sergei Severinov, 2003. "Bequests as Signals: An Explanation for the Equal Division Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 733-764, August.
    3. Efe A. Ok & Pietro Ortoleva & Gil Riella, 2012. "Incomplete Preferences Under Uncertainty: Indecisiveness in Beliefs versus Tastes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(4), pages 1791-1808, July.
    4. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    5. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    6. Kelman, Steven & Sanders, Ronald & Pandit, Gayatri & Taylor, Sarah, 2014. "Tell It Like It Is: Groupthink, Decisiveness, and Decision-Making among U.S. Federal Subcabinet Executives," Working Paper Series rwp14-039, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1994. "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 841-877, October.
    8. Bernhardt, Dan & Duggan, John & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "The Case for Responsible Parties," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(4), pages 570-587, November.
    9. Haluk Ergin & Todd Sarver, 2010. "A Unique Costly Contemplation Representation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1285-1339, July.
    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. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Bodoh-Creed, Aaron L., 2023. "Pervasive signaling," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(1), January.

    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. B. Douglas Bernheim & Sergei Severinov, 2003. "Bequests as Signals: An Explanation for the Equal Division Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 733-764, August.
    2. Edward Cartwright & Amrish Patel, 2010. "Public Goods, Social Norms, and Naïve Beliefs," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(2), pages 199-223, April.
    3. Hedlund, Jonas, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion by a privately informed sender," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 229-268.
    4. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    5. Araujo, Aloisio & Moreira, Humberto & Tsuchida, Marcos, 2011. "Do dividend changes signal future earnings?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 117-134, January.
    6. Pejsachowicz, Leonardo & Toussaert, Séverine, 2017. "Choice deferral, indecisiveness and preference for flexibility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 417-425.
    7. Raymond Deneckere & Sergei Severinov, 2022. "Signalling, screening and costly misrepresentation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 1334-1370, August.
    8. Pejsachowicz, Leonardo & Toussaert, Séverine, 2017. "Choice deferral, indecisiveness and preference for flexibility," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 83566, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. James Andreoni, 2007. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001459, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Koida, Nobuo, 2022. "Indecisiveness, preference for flexibility, and a unique subjective state space," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    11. Amrish Patel & Edward Cartwright, 2009. "Social Norms and Naive Beliefs," Studies in Economics 0906, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    12. Thomas de Haan & Theo Offerman & Randolph Sloof, 2015. "Money Talks? An Experimental Investigation Of Cheap Talk And Burned Money," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1385-1426, November.
    13. Amrish Patel & Edward Cartwright, 2012. "Naïve Beliefs and the Multiplicity of Social Norms," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 168(2), pages 280-289, June.
    14. Dominiak, Adam & Lee, Dongwoo, 2023. "Testing rational hypotheses in signaling games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    15. De Sinopoli, Francesco, 2004. "A note on forward induction in a model of representative democracy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 41-54, January.
    16. Stone, Daniel F. & Miller, Steven J., 2013. "Leading, learning and herding," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 222-231.
    17. Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Trust as a Signal of a Social Norm and the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 999-1012, June.
    18. Hisashi Sawaki, 2015. "Horizontal Mergers Under Asymmetric Information About Synergies," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 167-184, September.
    19. Leonardo Pejsachowicz & Séverine Toussaert, 2017. "Choice deferral, indecisiveness and preference for flexibility," Post-Print hal-02862199, HAL.
    20. Dobrin R. Kolev & Thomas J. Prusa, 2021. "Dumping and double crossing: The (in)effectiveness of cost-based trade policy under incomplete information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Thomas J Prusa (ed.), Economic Effects of Antidumping, chapter 7, pages 129-152, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..

    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:eee:gamebe:v:121:y:2020:i:c:p:146-168. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.