Suchergebnisse

Periodic elections are the main instrument through which voters can hold politicians accountable. From this perspective term limits, which restrict vot-ers ' ability to reward politicians with re-election, appear counterproductive. We show that despite the disciplining effect of elections two-term limits – which is the empirically most frequent restriction on tenure – or even longer term limits can be ex ante welfare improving from the perspective of voters. By reducing the value of holding office term limits can induce politicians to implement policies that are closer to their private preferences. Such "truth-ful " behavior by incumbents in turn results in better screening of incum-bents. We show that the combination of these two effects can strictly increase the utility of voters.

International audience ; In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows first best rules, as described in a number of scattered works. This paper presents a formal general argument which allows to unify much of the literature. It lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which the results hold in a variety of setups, with extensions to preference heterogeneity and individual production sets

International audience ; In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows first best rules, as described in a number of scattered works. This paper presents a formal general argument which allows to unify much of the literature. It lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which the results hold in a variety of setups, with extensions to preference heterogeneity and individual production sets

International audience ; In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows first best rules, as described in a number of scattered works. This paper presents a formal general argument which allows to unify much of the literature. It lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which the results hold in a variety of setups, with extensions to preference heterogeneity and individual production sets

International audience ; In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows first best rules, as described in a number of scattered works. This paper presents a formal general argument which allows to unify much of the literature. It lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which the results hold in a variety of setups, with extensions to preference heterogeneity and individual production sets