American Economic Review Vol. 91 No. 1 2001
The Provision of Public Goods Under Alternative Electoral Incentives
Abstract
Politicians who care about the spoils of office may underprovide a public good because its benefits cannot be targeted to voters as easily as pork-barrel spending. We compare a winner-take-all system—where all the spoils go to the winner—to a proportional system—where the spoils of office are split among candidates proportionally to their share of the vote. In a winner-take-all system the public good is provided less often than in a proportional system when the public good is particularly desirable. We then consider the electoral college system and show that it is particularly subject to this inefficiency.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.91.1.225
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 225-239
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref