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Candidate Entry, Screening, and the Political Budget Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Le Borgne, Eric

    (IMF)

  • Lockwood, Ben

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

Abstract
We investigate whether relevant private information about citizens’ competence in political office can be credibly revealed by their entry and campaign expenditure decisions, as opposed to choice of policy once in office. We find that this depends on whether voters and candidates have common or conflicting interests ; only in the former case can entry be revealing in equilibrium. We apply these results to Rogoff’s (1990) model of the political budget cycle, allowing for candidate entry, as well as elections : as interests are common, low-ability candidates are screened out at the entry stage, and so there is no signaling via fiscal policy (i.e. no “political budget cycle”). In a variant of the Rogoff model where citizens differ in honesty, rather than ability, interests are conflicting, and so the political budget cycle can persist in equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Le Borgne, Eric & Lockwood, Ben, 2000. "Candidate Entry, Screening, and the Political Budget Cycle," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 582, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:582
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    4. Costas Roumanias, 2005. "Signaling Through Political Campaigns: Elections As A Revelation Mechanism," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 367-392, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric Information ; Citizen-Candidate ; Representative Democracy ; Signaling Games ; Political Budget Cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

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