Choosing a Public-Spirited Leader. An Experimental Investigation of Political Selection
- Author(s)
- Thomas Markussen, Jean-Robert Tyran
- Abstract
In this experiment, voters select a leader who can either act in the public interest, i.e. make efficient and equitable policy choices, or act in a corrupt way, i.e. use public funds for private gain. Voters can observe candidates’ pro-social behavior and their score in a cognitive ability test prior to the election, and this fact is known to candidates. Therefore, self-interested candidates have incentives to act in a pro-social manner, i.e. to pretend to be public-spirited leaders. We find that both truly pro-social and egoistic leaders co-exist, but that political selection is ineffective in choosing public-spirited leaders. The main reason is that egoistic candidates strategically pretend to be pro-social to increase their chances of winning the election.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Economics, Vienna Center for Experimental Economics
- External organisation(s)
- University of Copenhagen
- Journal
- Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
- Volume
- 144
- Pages
- 204-218
- No. of pages
- 15
- ISSN
- 0167-2681
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2017.09.006
- Publication date
- 12-2017
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506013 Political theory, 502027 Political economy
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/choosing-a-publicspirited-leader-an-experimental-investigation-of-political-selection(ee6d5fe4-745f-4e9a-8f36-3b1395be792e).html