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Daron Acemoglu and James M. Snyder. Padró i Miquel, Gerard Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics 2006-03-29T18:41:16Z 2006-03-29T18:41:16Z 2005 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32401 61690915 Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2005. "June 2005." Includes bibliographical references. This thesis is composed by three independent essays on the limits of political accountability. In the first essay I analyze an extremely stylized model of political agency with two dimensional outcomes. I show that the non-contractible nature of rewards to the agent (the politician) is especially taxing when the voters want to control outcomes in more than one dimension. I compare and contrast this environment with traditional multitasking analyses in the context of the theory of the firm. The second essay examines why political accountability has failed so miserably in post- colonial, sub-saharan Africa. I provide a theory based on the exploitation of ethnic divisions by self-interested but weak rulers. This cleavages allow the leaders to expropriate resources from the citizenry, included their own ethnic supporters and still remain in power. The model predicts ethnic bias, patronage, inefficient policies and absence of public investment. The third essay is an empirical analysis of legislative performance in the North Carolina General Assembly. Using a new dataset I am able to show that legislators find their good performance rewarded both within the state legislature and in their electoral careers. These findings have relevance for the discussion on term limits and the theoretical modeling of political agency. by Gerard Padró i Miquel. Ph.D. 138 p. 7688623 bytes 7695901 bytes application/pdf application/pdf eng Massachusetts Institute of Technology M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 Economics. Essays in political accountability Thesis application/pdf false Publication unknown unknown <Publication xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/1.1/" id="4fd5414f-55da-4799-b779-f87e975db2d2"> <Type xmlns="https://www.openaire.eu/cerif-profile/vocab/COAR_Publication_Types">http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843</Type> <Language>eng</Language> <Title>Essays in political accountability</Title> <PublishedIn> <Publication> </Publication> </PublishedIn> <PublicationDate>2005</PublicationDate> <Authors> <Author> <DisplayName>Padró i Miquel, Gerard</DisplayName> <Affiliation> <OrgUnit> </OrgUnit> </Affiliation> </Author> </Authors> <Editors> </Editors> <Publishers> <Publisher> <DisplayName>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</DisplayName> <OrgUnit /> </Publisher> </Publishers> <License>http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582</License> <Keyword>Economics.</Keyword> <Abstract>This thesis is composed by three independent essays on the limits of political accountability. In the first essay I analyze an extremely stylized model of political agency with two dimensional outcomes. I show that the non-contractible nature of rewards to the agent (the politician) is especially taxing when the voters want to control outcomes in more than one dimension. I compare and contrast this environment with traditional multitasking analyses in the context of the theory of the firm. The second essay examines why political accountability has failed so miserably in post- colonial, sub-saharan Africa. I provide a theory based on the exploitation of ethnic divisions by self-interested but weak rulers. This cleavages allow the leaders to expropriate resources from the citizenry, included their own ethnic supporters and still remain in power. The model predicts ethnic bias, patronage, inefficient policies and absence of public investment. The third essay is an empirical analysis of legislative performance in the North Carolina General Assembly. Using a new dataset I am able to show that legislators find their good performance rewarded both within the state legislature and in their electoral careers. These findings have relevance for the discussion on term limits and the theoretical modeling of political agency.</Abstract> <Access xmlns="http://purl.org/coar/access_right" > </Access> </Publication>