The Limited Power of Voting to Limit Power

Abstract

In this paper, we experimentally approach the question of which aspects of a voting procedure are able to restrict elected candidates' willingness to use their power in an opportunistic way. For this purpose, we rule out re-election concerns and analyze whether the presence of a vote by itself matters for the exercise of power. We compare two kinds of electoral campaigns: self-descriptions of personality and promises regarding prospective in-office behavior. We find that social approval as conveyed by a vote does not suffice to induce pro-social choices by elected candidates. On the other hand, when campaigns are promisebased, elected candidates transfer more to their recipients than candidates selected by a random draw even though promises do not differ. This refutes explanations based on a taste for consistency or costs of lying. In contrast, the fact Hong Geng, Laboratory for Experimental Economics, University of Bonn, Germany (honggeng@gmx.de). Arne Robert Weiss, University of Cologne & Center for Empirical Research in Economics and Behavioral Sciences, University of Erfurt, Germany (arne.weiss@wiso.uni-koeln.de). Irenaeus Wolff, University of Konstanz, Germany / Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut (TWI), Kreuzlingen, Switzerland (wolff@twi-kreuzlingen.ch).We thank Gari Walkowitz as well as Stephan Tontrup for their support in designing the experiment and Mareike Hoffmann as well as Fu Hao for running the German sessions and the follow-up sessions in China, respectively. We are indebted to Jia Jiamin and the industrious staff at the Herbert A. Simon, and Reinhard Selten Behavioral Decision Research Lab for their support as well as to CEREB and the Bonn Laboratory for Experimental Economics for funding the experiment. Our thanks further go to Katharine Bendrick, Mareike Hoffmann, Bettina Rockenbach,Özgür Gürerk, members of CEREB, and to the associate editor and two anonymous referees, for valuable comments on earlier versions of the paper. 695Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving. de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-0-320272 Erschienen in: Journal of Public Economic Theory ; 13 (2011), 5. -S. 695-719 https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2011 696 that the correlation between dictators' promises and their beliefs on voter expectations is considerably strengthened in the presence of a vote offers support to a guilt-aversion hypothesis. However, this support is qualified by the correlation between dictators' second-order beliefs and their choices, which is weaker than predicted. Overall, our results suggest the power of voting to limit the self-oriented exertion of power is limited and context specific.

Politicians and their promises in an uncertain world: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in India

“…In response, and aided by incentive-compatible mechanisms, economists step back to the lab to disentangle motivations within controlled settings. In lab experiments with student subjects, Corazzini et al (2014) allowed candidates to make promises to voters about how they will divide the pie that the election winner receives between themselves and the voters, and found that campaign promises may not be purely cheap talk (also see Corazzini et al 2007;Geng et al 2011).…”

Who Runs? Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics

“…Empirical Our paper builds on the assumption of heterogeneity with respect to lying aversion. Geng et al (2011) and Corazzini et al (2014) have recently shown in lab experiments that campaign promises may not be pure cheap talk. 4 In their experiments, candidates make promises to voters about how they will split a pie that the election winner receives between themselves and the voters.…”

“…While a theoretical analysis based on the traditional assumption that candidates are completely selfish suggests that they will promise anything to get elected and once in office maximize their private gains (e.g., Alesina, 1988), it has recently been demonstrated by Geng et al (2011) and Corazzini et al (2014) that campaign promises are not just cheap talk even in one-shot interactions. Instead, most subjects in these experiments care about the deviation of their actions in office from their promises at the election stage.…”

A representation theorem for guilt aversion

“…Any individual who is sufficiently averse to this discomfort may therefore refrain from taking the action in the first place. Guilt aversion is able to explain a vast array of behaviors, including cooperation (Miettinen and Suetens, 2008), altruism (Andreoni and Rao, 2011), conformism (Khalmetski, 2015), group favoritism (Güth et al, 2009) and reciprocity (Chang et al, 2011), and economic experiments indicate that it is indeed an important determinant in a variety of different situations (Ketelaar and Au, 2003;Charness and Dufwenberg, 2006;Hopfensitz and Reuben, 2009;Geng et al, 2011;Battigalli et al, 2013). More recently, guilt averse behavior has also made its way into macroeconomic modeling.…”