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Who Runs? Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics

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  • Fehrler, Sebastian
  • Fischbacher, Urs
  • Schneider, Maik

Abstract

We examine the incentives to self-select into politics. To this end, we set up a two-stage political competition model and test its key mechanisms in the lab. At the entry stage, potential candidates compete in a contest to become their party’s nominee. At the election stage, the nominated candidates campaign by making non-binding promises to voters. Confirming the model’s key predictions, we find that dishonest people over-proportionally self-select into the political race.

Suggested Citation

  • Fehrler, Sebastian & Fischbacher, Urs & Schneider, Maik, 2017. "Who Runs? Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168083, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168083
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Heß, Moritz & Scheve, Christian von & Schupp, Jürgen & Wagner, Aiko & Wagner, Gert G., 2018. "Are political representatives more risk-loving than the electorate? Evidence from German federal and state parliaments," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 4, pages 1-7.
    2. Martin G. Kocher & Simeon Schudy & Lisa Spantig, 2018. "I Lie? We Lie! Why? Experimental Evidence on a Dishonesty Shift in Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 3995-4008, September.
    3. Benjamin Monnery & Maxime Le Bihan, 2018. "Can Public and Private Sanctions Discipline Politicians? Evidence from the French Parliament," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-21, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    4. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2019. "Lying through others: Does delegation promote deception?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 59-73.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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