Evidence on the political principal-agent problem from voting on public finance for concert halls
Evidence on the political principal-agent problem from voting on public finance for concert halls
复制标题
从音乐厅公共财政投票看政治委托代理问题的证据
DOI：
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
N. Potrafke
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Potrafke
当选民的偏好与政治代表的偏好不一致时，就会出现委托代理问题。政治委托代理问题的后果往往是政治上迎合特殊利益。在本文中，我提供了关于公共支出的委托代理问题的例子。这些例子涉及德国两个城市音乐厅的建设或扩建。在拥有大量左翼选民的选区，对为音乐厅提供公共资金的抵制尤其强烈。有证据表明，政治代表比他们的选民更资产阶级。在所研究的案例中，信息不对称并不普遍，选民能够通过公民投票来约束他们的代表，这种公民投票与政治代表的投票结果相抵触。
Principal-agent problems can arise when preferences of voters are not aligned with preferences of political representatives. Often the consequence of the political principal-agent problem is political catering to special interests. In this paper I provide examples of principal-agent problems regarding public spending. The examples concern construction or extension of concert halls in two German cities. Resistance to public funding for the concert halls was particularly strong in electoral districts with large constituencies on the left. The evidence indicates that political representatives were more bourgeois than their constituencies. In the cases studied asymmetric information did not prevail and voters were able to discipline their representatives through referenda that countered the results of voting by political representatives.