IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eth/wpswif/06-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Elections, Contracts and Markets

Author

Abstract

As the performance of long-term projects is not observable in the short run politicians may pander to public opinion. To solve this problem, we propose a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to predict the long-term performance of a policy, while threshold contracts stipulate a price level on the political information market that a politician must reach to have the right to stand for reelection. Reelection thresholds are offered by politicians during campaigns. We show that, on balance, the triple mechanism increases social welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans Gersbach & Markus Müller, 2006. "Elections, Contracts and Markets," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 06/56, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
  • Handle: RePEc:eth:wpswif:06-56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cer.ethz.ch/research/wp_06_56.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nordhaus, William D, 1991. "To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 920-937, July.
    2. William R. Cline, 1992. "Economics of Global Warming, The," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 39, April.
    3. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2004. "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 107-126, Spring.
    4. David Romer, 2003. "Misconceptions and Political Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Berlemann, Michael & Schmidt, Carsten, 2001. "Predictive accuracy of political stock markets: Empirical evidence from an European perspective," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 05/01, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    6. Hans Gersbach & Verena Liessem, 2008. "Reelection threshold contracts in politics," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(2), pages 233-255, August.
    7. Torsten Persson & Gérard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 1997. "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1163-1202.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Schneider, Maik T., 2012. "Tax contracts and elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1461-1479.
    9. 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.
    10. repec:reg:rpubli:259 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Peter A. Morris, 1983. "An Axiomatic Approach to Expert Resolution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 24-32, January.
    12. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    13. Hahn, Volker, 2009. "Reciprocity and voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 467-480, November.
    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. Hans Gersbach, 2007. "Anreize für Weitsicht und Wiederwahlschwellen: Wege zur besseren Demokratie," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(4), pages 389-397, November.
    2. Balistreri, Edward J. & Hillberry, Russell H. & Rutherford, Thomas F., 2011. "Structural estimation and solution of international trade models with heterogeneous firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 95-108, March.
    3. Hans Gersbach & Verena Liessem, 2008. "Reelection threshold contracts in politics," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(2), pages 233-255, August.
    4. Gersbach, Hans, 2007. "Vote-share Contracts and Democracy," CEPR Discussion Papers 6497, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Hans Gersbach & Markus Müller, 2011. "Information Markets, Elections and Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 3327, CESifo.
    6. Markus Müller, 2009. "Vote-Share Contracts and Learning-by-Doing," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 09/114, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    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. Hans Gersbach & Markus Müller, 2011. "Information Markets, Elections and Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 3327, CESifo.
    2. Hans Gersbach & Oriana Ponta, 2017. "Unraveling short- and farsightedness in politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 289-321, March.
    3. Gersbach, Hans & Liessem, Verena, 2008. "Incentive contracts and elections for politicians with multi-task problems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 401-411, November.
    4. Hans Gersbach & Verena Liessem, 2008. "Reelection threshold contracts in politics," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(2), pages 233-255, August.
    5. Markus Müller, 2007. "Motivation of politicians and long-term policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 273-289, September.
    6. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    7. Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2021. "Separation of powers with ideological parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 333-382, July.
    8. 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.
    9. Ernesto Dal Bó & Pedro Dal Bó & Erik Eyster, 2018. "The Demand for Bad Policy when Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 964-998.
    10. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics," MPRA Paper 30231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Gersbach, Hans & Kleinschmidt, Tobias, 2009. "Power to youth: Designing democracy for long-term well-being," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 158-172, September.
    12. Jennings, Colin, 2011. "The good, the bad and the populist: A model of political agency with emotional voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 611-624.
    13. Eicher, Theo S. & García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Kuenzel, David J., 2018. "Constitutional rules as determinants of social infrastructure," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 182-209.
    14. Hans Gersbach, 2004. "Competition of Politicians for Incentive Contracts and Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 157-177, October.
    15. Giovanni Facchini & Cecilia Testa, 2016. "Corruption and bicameral reforms," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 387-411, August.
    16. Acemoglu, Daron, 2003. "Why not a political Coase theorem? Social conflict, commitment, and politics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 620-652, December.
    17. Verena Liessem, 2008. "Electoral competition, incentive contracts for politicians and unknown preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(1), pages 13-41, January.
    18. Andreas Grunewald & Emanuel Hansen & Gert Pönitzsch, 2020. "Political selection and the optimal concentration of political power," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(1), pages 273-311, July.
    19. Fox, Justin & Van Weelden, Richard, 2010. "Partisanship and the effectiveness of oversight," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 674-687, October.
    20. Galina Zudenkova, 2015. "Political cronyism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 473-492, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    elections; threshold contracts; democracy; information markets; triple mechanism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eth:wpswif:06-56. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwethch.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.