Search

This paper models a purely informational mechanism behind the incumbency advantage. In a two-period electoral campaign with two policy issues, an incumbent and a possibly more competent challenger compete for election by voters who are heterogeneously informed about the state of the world. Due to the asymmetries in government responsibility between candidates, the incumbent's statement may convey information on the relevance of the issues to voters. In equilibrium, the incumbent sometimes strategically releases his statement early and thus signals the importance of his signature issue to the voters. We find that, since the incumbent's positioning on the issue reveals private information which the challenger can use in later statements, the incumbent's incentives to distort the campaign are decreasing in his quality, as previously documented by the empirical literature. The distortions arising in equilibrium are decreasing in the incumbent's true competence; however, the distortions may be increasing in the incumbent's expected competence on his signature issue.

Constitutional structures shape politicians’ behaviour and hence policy outcomes through the different incentives schemes that they generate. In this paper we analyse these mechanisms in parliamentary and presidential systems. The comparison is carried out by analysing how the two systems may select the efficient policy in the presence of asymmetric information. Presidential and parliamentary systems differ in that the policy proposed by the executive in the parliamentary system is confidence-dependent and observable. The main findings suggest that the parliament responds better to the incentive scheme in the presidential system due to the lower uncertainty faced by legislators over their term limit. However, the parliamentary system generates a more efficient behaviour of the executive due to selection and disciplining effects.

Constitutional structures shape politicians’ behaviour and hence policy outcomes through the different incentives schemes that they generate. In this paper we analyse these mechanisms in parliamentary and presidential systems. The comparison is carried out by analysing how the two systems may select the efficient policy in the presence of asymmetric information. Presidential and parliamentary systems differ in that the policy proposed by the executive in the parliamentary system is confidence-dependent and observable. The main findings suggest that the parliament responds better to the incentive scheme in the presidential system due to the lower uncertainty faced by legislators over their term limit. However, the parliamentary system generates a more efficient behaviour of the executive due to selection and disciplining effects.