TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Fehrler, Sebastian
AU  - Fischbacher, Urs
AU  - Schneider, Maik T.
        TI  - Who Runs? Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics
        PY  - 2016/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 10258
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp10258
        AB  - We examine the incentives to self-select into politics and how they depend on the transparency of the entry process. To this end, we set up a two-stage political competition model and test its key mechanisms in the lab. At the entry stage, potential candidates compete in a contest to become their party's nominee. At the election stage, the nominated candidates campaign by making non-binding promises to voters. Confirming the model's key predictions, we find in the experiment that dishonest people over-proportionally self-select into the political race; and that this adverse selection effect can be prevented if the entry stage is made transparent to voters.
        KW  - lying aversion
KW  - experiment
KW  - political economy
KW  - voting
KW  - contest
KW  - primaries
KW  - campaigns
KW  - cheap talk
KW  - elections
KW  - candidates
KW  - self-selection
        ER  -