Electoral control and the human capital of politicians

Abstract

We develop a model of electoral control in which politicians in a legislative body allocate their time between providing constituency services to their voters, and pursuing the objectives of legislative cliques and factions. While a politician's human capital symmetrically increases his inherent ability to engage in both endeavors, our analysis uncovers an equilibrium bias towards the latter. As a result of the strategic interdependencies among legislators, a trade-off arises between politicians' human capital and voters' ability to exert electoral control. We characterize conditions under which an increase in the human capital of politicians makes voters worse off by encouraging all politicians to divert their attention away from their constituents.