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Political Competition, Ideology and Corruption

Author

Listed:
  • Aristotelis Boukouras

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

  • Kostas Koufopoulos

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

This paper presents a model of political competition, where voter decisions are affected by their ideological adherence to political parties. We derive a number of interesting results: First, we show that an equilibrium exists even though voting is fully deterministic. Second, although politicians, because of deterministic voting, can win an election with certainty by making concessions to voters, they choose to win the election only with some probability in order to maximize their expected rents. Third, if the distribution of ideology is asymmetric, then political parties follow different platforms in equilibrium. Finally, our model generates two novel empirical predicitions, which, to the best of our knowledge, have not been tested yet: i) the higher the ideological adherence to a political party the more inefficient policies this party will follow, ii) the higher the number of extra votes required for election victory (the super-majority requirement) the higher the degree of corruption.

Suggested Citation

  • Aristotelis Boukouras & Kostas Koufopoulos, 2011. "Political Competition, Ideology and Corruption," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 58, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    • Handle: RePEc:got:gotcrc:058
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    File URL: http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/courant-papers/CRC-PEG_DP_58.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    corruption; political instability; voting behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P43 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Finance; Public Finance

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