Nber Working Paper Series a Political Theory of Populism
نویسندگان
چکیده
When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be influenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses “populist’ policies i.e., policies to the left of the median voter as a way of signaling that he is not from the right. Truly right-wing politicians respond by choosing more moderate, or even left-of-center policies. This populist bias of policy is greater when the value of remaining in office is higher for the politician; when there is greater polarization between the policy preferences of the median voter and right-wing politicians; when politicians are indeed more likely to have a hidden right-wing agenda; when there is an intermediate amount of noise in the information that voters receive; when politicians are more forward-looking; and when there is greater uncertainty about the type of the incumbent. We show that similar results apply when some politicians can be corrupted or influenced through other non-electoral means by the rich elite. We also show that ‘soft term limits’ may exacerbate, rather than reduce, the populist bias of policies. Daron Acemoglu Department of Economics MIT, E52-380B 50 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 and CIFAR and also NBER [email protected] Georgy Egorov Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University 2001 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 and NBER [email protected] Konstantin Sonin New Economic School 47 Nakhimovsky prosp. Moscow, 117418 RUSSIA [email protected]
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