Politicians and their constituents

Question 1

What did Dal Bo Ernesto et al (2017) find out about the representation of politicians

Answer 1

• looked into Swedish government officials, and found politicians were a part of the elite, with a higher income and education, found that they also had a higher leadership score and scored higher on cognitive tests (positive representation)

Question 2

How representative are politicians in Sub-Saharan Africa

Answer 2

• the education of politicians relative to citizens is a major variation, as it was found that most politicians where university educated, sometimes a constitutional requirement

Question 3

What did Besley et al (2017), find

Answer 3

• looked into the Sweden Democratic Zipper Quota – which the liberal democrats required parties to make a list of candidates with an equal number of women.
• found that quality of females competence stayed the same, but rather this quota had been done in order to increase the competence of men – suggests a negative effect of representation biases, as it limits the pool of qualified and more competent politicians

Question 4

How did Gordon Black (1972) explain why people ran for office

Answer 4

• some citizens are more likely to run for office based on their expected benefits
• Each citizen has a utility function – U(Office) = (BxP) – C
• U(Office) = member reward for entering political office
• B = benefit from achieving office (policy, patronage, career ambitions, corruption rents, etc.)
• P = probability of attaining office
• C = The cost of obtaining office
• in countries where there is no limit in costs in political campaigns, there is a huge cost to run for office e.g. Malawi 20,000-30,000, Nigeria ready to spend 30x their income to get into office
• Theory suggests that if we change the cost of entry, we could get more people trying to run for office and therefore more representation

Question 5

Case studies- Understanding the costs of running for election

Answer 5

• the cost in entering politics is particularly high in countries with no limit on political entry especially when this career would provide alot of benefits
• politicians in Nigeria are ready to spend 30x their average income in order to get into office
• when elected these politicians must repay their debt through contracts which increases corruption

Question 6

Case stuides- campaign speding limits

Answer 6

Gulzar et al 2022
– looked in Colombia Mayoral elections, and found that mayors who had a higher cut-off limit are provided with a lot more money by donors, this led to mayors who have won an election gave out more contracts

• Found that looser campaign limits lead to higher corruption, poor policy, and favouritism when giving out contracts

Question 7

Case studies- campaign spending limits UK

Answer 7

Fouiranies (2021)
- UK campaign limits are very restrictive, found that spending limits where higher for conservative than labour, these campaign spending limits, increase incumbency advantage as incumbents have easier time to raise revenue, as well as being an easier choice for donors

Question 8

Understanding the benefits of political entry: Career incentives in the UK

Answer 8

Eggers & Hainmeuller
- looked at the effect of winning an election on income across different candidates (wealth of politicians/candidate at time of dead)
* For labour politicians it did not have an significant impact on income, however conservative candidates who wins office has 2x the income relative to one who loses office
- thus for conservative candidates their is an economic motivation for running for office

Question 9

Understanding the benefits of political entry: Career incentives in the Pakistan

READING

Answer 9

Gulzar et al 2021

• looked at NGOs in a district in Pakistan during village elections and why people ran for this election and whether or not they could change their mind based on information they give them either about social and personal benefits
• Found that personal benefits do not shift anything, but social benefits are 85% more likely to run for office
• And those who were motivated by social benefits and were elected, led to them doing more for their citizens in office contradicting socialisation effect

Question 10

Define Responsiveness

Answer 10

adopting “policies that are signalled as preferred by citizens” (Manin et al. 1999)

Question 11

When are politicians most responsive

Answer 11

i) citizens are electorally pivotal
ii) needs are high,
iii) knowledge cost is low

Question 12

What did Jablonski and Seim 2022) study and find out. READING

Answer 12

studied politicians in Malawi when asking for help to allocate spending benefits for a school, and how politicians make these decisions
- Found that when given a quiz about schools in their constituents, politicians are able to identify the fundamental basics of school, but were unable to provide specific information about their constituents which shows knowledge costs are high
- Discovered that politicians cared about needs, particularly near to them
- And average, when politicians were told about how needy schools are, it is reflective in their decisions

• suggests politicians are more knowledgeable and more
  responsive to communities with close social and geographic ties