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American Economic Review Vol. 94 No. 4 2004

The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government

Eric Maskin1; Jean Tirole2

1 Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540, and Princeton University. · 2 Institut d'Economie Industrielle, Manufacture des Tabacs, Bureau MF529-Bat. F, 21 allees de Brienne, 31000 Toulouse, France, and GREMAQ (UMR 5603 CNRS), Toulouse, CERAS (URA 2036 CNRS), Paris, and MIT.

Abstract

We build a simple model to capture the major virtues and drawbacks of making public officials accountable (i.e., subjecting them to reelection): On the one hand, accountability allows the public to screen and discipline their officials; on the other, it may induce those officials to pander to public opinion and put too little weight on minority welfare. We study when decision-making powers should be allocated to the public directly (direct democracy), to accountable officials (called “politicians”), or to nonaccountable officials (called “judges”).

DOI
10.1257/0002828042002606
Volume
94
Issue
4
Pages
1034-1054
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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