Elected Officials’ Opportunistic Behavior on Third-Party PunishmentAn Experimental Analysis

  1. Natalia Jiménez
  2. Ángel Solano-García
Journal:
Working papers = Documentos de trabajo: Serie EC - (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas)

Year of publication: 2015

Issue: 4

Type: Working paper

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Abstract

In this paper we analyze how the punishment behavior of a democratically elected official varies when facing an electoral process (opportunism). To this aim, we conduct an economic experiment in which officials are third-party punishers in a public goods game. We consider two different scenarios which differ in the degree of cooperation within the society. We find that officials increase their punishment when they face elections in both scenarios. Contrary to candidates' expectations, voters always vote for the least severe candidate.

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