Do Elections Lead to Informed Public Decisions?¤

Democracies delegate substantial decision power to politicians. Using a model in which an incumbent can design, examine and implement public policies, we show that examination takes place in spite of, rather than thanks to, elections. Elections are needed as a carrot and a stick to motivate politi-cians, yet politicians who are overly interested in re-election shy away from policy examination. Our analysis sheds light on the distance created in ma-ture democracies between the political process and the production of policy relevant information; on the role played by probing into candidates ’ past; and on the possibility of crowding out desirable political behaviour by increasing the value of holding o¢ce. ¤We are grateful to Klaas Beniers, Maarten Janssen and seminar participants at Erasmus Uni