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Incentive pay for policy‐makers?
Author(s) -
Britz Volker,
Ebrahimi Afsoon,
Gersbach Hans
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of public economic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.809
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1467-9779
pISSN - 1097-3923
DOI - 10.1111/jpet.12553
Subject(s) - incentive , public economics , agency (philosophy) , outcome (game theory) , politics , economics , microeconomics , public policy , political science , law , philosophy , epistemology , economic growth
Abstract We study how to efficiently motivate policy‐makers to solve political multitask problems. Political multitask problems typically have some outcomes that are difficult to measure. Moreover, there are conflicts among citizens about optimal policies and policy‐makers have the power to tax the citizens to invest in better outcomes for some tasks. We develop a political agency model with two tasks and only one measurable outcome. In such an environment, policy‐makers choose socially inefficient public good levels and expropriate minorities. A judicious combination of constitutional limits on taxation and incentive pay for policy‐makers is second‐best. Incentive pay is conditional on the public good level.