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Candidate Ambition and Advancement under Term Limits
Abstract
In this paper, I present a model of candidate entry into a two-tiered hierarchy of political positions with the objective of exploring the extent to which term limits at lower level political positions alter the average skill of office-seekers for higher level political positions. In addition, this paper analyzes whether the increase in political skill in upper level office holders comes at the expense of lower level political positions. The results suggest that under certain conditions term limits on lower level elected offices may reduce the expected political skill of officeholders at the lower level without guaranteeing an increase in skill at the upper level.
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The authors investigated the individual characteristic of political skill and its relation to 5 different career-related outcomes (total compensation, promotions, career satisfaction, life satisfaction, and perceived external job mobility). They examined data obtained from a sample of 191 employees working a wide range of occupations. The results reveal that political skill is associated with 4 of the 5 outcomes. In addition, they examined the 4 dimensions of political skill and found that the networking ability dimension dominates the relations with the examined outcomes. The authors discuss practical implications, limitations, and directions for future research.
We assess the impact of a variety of policies that may influence the career decisions of members of the US Congress. These policies alter incentives to run for re-election, run for higher office or leave Congress, by altering wages, non-pecuniary rewards and career prospects (both in and out of Congress). We find that the effect of most policies varies considerably across different types of politicians. For example, a reduction in the congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by "skilled" politicians, Democrats, and politicians who were relatively young when first elected, but not by politicians who most value legislative accomplishments ("achievers").
In the paper we construct a spatial model that specifies voter utility in terms of responsiveness to public policy and provide an explanation of the seeming paradox that voters who vote for the incumbent also unilaterally self-impose term limits. Our model shows that when the position of the incumbent is closer to the median voter position, it is less likely that voters will support term limits. But if the incumbent's party is more moderate, it is more likely that voters will support term limits. In addition, we argue that term limits or the threat of it will increase the responsiveness of the politicians' policy platforms.
In this paper we develop a model to predict the seniority turnover, and transition consequences of term limit reforms for any institution with a regularized procedure for rotating membership. With this model we can predict the number of members who will be serving in their last term at any given time once an institution reaches a stable state under term limit reforms. For example, our results show that for the U.S. Senate current term limit proposals will result in a substantial increase in the number of lame duck members and a significant reduction in average seniority. We make no claims as to the public policy effects of term limit proposals. However, our model can be used to design a proposal that will maximize any benefits or minimize any public policy effects found to be associated with term limit reforms.
This paper considers the seemingly inconsistent behavior of individuals who simultaneously vote for incumbents and for limitations
on their terms in office. We argue that such behavior may occur even if voters pursue their self-interests in both candidate
and term-limitation elections. First, we formulate elections for Congressional candidates as a two-person game, where each
candidate maximizes votes by proposing a distribution of benefits to voters. Then we discuss the term limitation at the state
level, where voters in each district compare, over time, the average benefits obtained from two alternative series of campaign
games: one with a longer tenure associated with no term limit and the other with a shorter tenure created by the introduction
of a term limit. In elections of candidates for Congress, the incumbent is successful because he can generate more aggregate
benefits for voters. We show, however, that at some critical point of the tenure, his behavior will be less beneficial to
his core constituents. In term-limitation elections, those voters tend to support a term limit. In some cases, they represent
a majority in the state, and term limits are enacted.
In this paper, we analyze the selection by opportunistic parties of the candidates who run for election. We consider a setting with incomplete but symmetric information about the candidates’ abilities, in which electoral campaigns provide voters with additional information about candidates. Parties care only about selecting an appropriate candidate to win the election, while voters elect the best candidate conditional on their information. We first argue that in order to defeat an established very good candidate of its rival, a party may favor a new candidate with highly uncertain ability, rather than an established good candidate. Next, we establish that the discrepancy between the objective of parties and the objective of the electorate leads to inefficient conservatism in the selection of candidates, i.e. each party keeps its incumbents too often from the voters’ viewpoint.
Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i.e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave politics before retirement and work in the private sector). In this paper, we propose a dynamic equilibrium model of the careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous with respect to their market ability and political skills. Our analysis provides an explanation for the existence of career politicians and individuals with political careers, and their motivations. We also investigate the effects of monetary incentives and other features of the political–economic environment on the quality of politicians and their careers. We show that an increase in the salary a politician receives while in office decreases the average quality of individuals who become politicians, decreases turnover in office, and may either decrease or increase the average quality of career politicians.
We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions. Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates free-ride on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.
We assess the impact of a variety of policies that may influence the career decisions of members of the US Congress. These policies alter incentives to run for re-election, run for higher office or leave Congress, by altering wages, non-pecuniary rewards and career prospects (both in and out of Congress). We find that the effect of most policies varies considerably across different types of politicians. For example, a reduction in the congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by "skilled" politicians, Democrats, and politicians who were relatively young when first elected, but not by politicians who most value legislative accomplishments ("achievers"). (JEL D72)
This paper develops an approach to the study of democratic policy-making where politicians are selected by the people from
those citizens who present themselves as candidates for public office. The approach has a number of attractive features. First,
it is a conceptualization of a pure form of representative democracy in which government is by, as well as of, the people. Second, the model is analytically tractable, being able to handle multidimensional issue and policy spaces very
naturally. Third, it provides a vehicle for answering normative questions about the performance of representative democracy.
The process by which high-level office-holders are selected is shown to result in pure office-seeking politicians looking like ideologues. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000
The authors examine the impact of a six-term tenure limit on members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The first part of this study develops a methodological framework for simulating the quantitative impact of term limits. The second part of this study uses this framework to estimate the effects of term limits on (1) the value of holding office, (2) turnover, and (3) the size of the Democratic majority in the House. Both steady-state and transition period effects are explored. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Our main goal is to quantify the returns to a career in the United States Congress. We specify a dynamic model of career decisions of a member of Congress and estimate this model using a newly collected dataset. Given estimates of the structural model, we assess reelection probabilities, estimate the effect of congressional experience on private and public sector wages, and quantify the value of a congressional seat. Moreover, we assess how an increase in the congressional wage or the imposition of term limits would affect the career decisions of politicians and the returns from a career in Congress.
We present a simple theory of the quality of elected officials. Quality has (at least) two dimensions: competence and honesty. Voters prefer competent and honest policymakers, so high-quality citizens have a greater chance of being elected to office. But low-quality citizens have a comparative advantage in pursuing elective office, because their market wages are lower than the market wages of high-quality citizens (competence), and/or because they reap higher returns from holding office (honesty). In the political equilibrium, the average quality of the elected body depends on the structure of rewards from holding public office. Under the assumption that the rewards from office are increasing in the average quality of office holders there can be multiple equilibria in quality. Under the assumption that incumbent policymakers set the rewards for future policymakers there can be path dependence in quality.
We develop a model of electoral competition in which citizens choose whether or not to run as candidates. A winner implements
her favorite policy. The equilibrium number of candidates depends negatively on the cost of running and positively on the
benefits of winning. For some parameter values all equilibria under plurality rule have exactly two candidates, whose positions
are distinct. Two-candidate elections are more likely under plurality rule than under a runoff system (cf. Duverger's Law).
The candidates' positions are less differentiated under a runoff system. There exist equilibria under both systems in which
some candidates have no chance of winning.
Electoral competition and political turnover
- J D Carillo
- T Mariotti
- JD Carillo
Carillo, J. D., & Mariotti, T. (2001). Electoral competition and political turnover. European Economic Review,
45, 1-25.
An analysis of the impact of term limits
- R Reed
- E Schansberg
Reed, R., & Schansberg, E. (1994). An analysis of the impact of term limits. Economic Inquiry, 32(1), 79-91.