Bierbrauer, Felix ORCID: 0000-0003-3879-9607 and Boyer, Pierre C. ORCID: 0000-0002-5495-7380 (2016). Efficiency, Welfare, and Political Competition*. Q. J. Econ., 131 (1). S. 461 - 519. CARY: OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC. ISSN 1531-4650
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
We study political competition in an environment in which voters have private information about their preferences. Our framework covers models of income taxation, public-goods provision, or publicly provided private goods. Politicians are vote-share maximizers. They can propose any policy that is resource-feasible and incentive-compatible. They can also offer special favors to subsets of the electorate. We prove two main results. First, the unique symmetric equilibrium is such that policies are surplus-maximizing and hence first-best Pareto-efficient. Second, there is a surplus-maximizing policy that wins a majority against any welfare-maximizing policy. Thus, in our model, policies that trade off equity and efficiency considerations are politically infeasible.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||||
Creators: |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-285232 | ||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.1093/qje/qjv033 | ||||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Q. J. Econ. | ||||||||||||
Volume: | 131 | ||||||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||||||
Page Range: | S. 461 - 519 | ||||||||||||
Date: | 2016 | ||||||||||||
Publisher: | OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC | ||||||||||||
Place of Publication: | CARY | ||||||||||||
ISSN: | 1531-4650 | ||||||||||||
Language: | English | ||||||||||||
Faculty: | Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences | ||||||||||||
Divisions: | Center of Excellence C-SEB Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Economics > Macroeconomic, Financial and Economic Policy > Professorship for Macroeconomic |
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Subjects: | Economics | ||||||||||||
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
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Refereed: | Yes | ||||||||||||
URI: | http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/28523 |
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