A Political Theory of Populism
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Acemoglu11-21.pdf
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371.81 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Acemoglu, Daron
Egorov, Georgy
Sonin, Konstantin
Date Issued
August 3, 2011
Publisher
Cambridge, MA: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Series/Report no.
Working paper (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics);11-21
Abstract
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.
Subjects
Political economy
Inequality
Populism
Voting
Signaling
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