ICES Experimental Economics Brown Bag Lecture
Transparency Curse in Electoral Accountability
Thursday, November 14, 2024 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
Vernon Smith Hall (formerly Metropolitan Building), Room 5075
The Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES) presents an ICES Brown Bag Lecture featuring:
George Mason University
Transparency Curse in Electoral Accountability
Abstract
We develop a political agency model with continuous types and study the impact of policy transparency. In the model, an incumbent with a private competence (type) exerts policy efforts for reelection. The policy outcome is a joint product of competence and effort. A voter makes an electoral decision after observing (a) only the policy outcome or (b) the policy outcome and effort. We show that, in equilibrium, the voter is better off when the policy is not transparent (a) than when it is (b). This is because transparency increases the selection effect - retaining a more competent politician - and decreases the accountability effect - inducing lower policy efforts, but the latter dominates the former. With a credible commitment, an electoral contract can yield an equivalent and higher payoff for both cases. JEL Codes: C72, D72, D82.
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