Unraveling short- and farsightedness in politics

Abstract

The absence of a deselection threat in incumbents’ last term in office can be negative or positive for the polity. Some politicians may reduce their efforts, while others may pursue beneficial long-term policies that may be unpopular in the short term. We propose a novel pension system that solves the effort problem while preserving the willingness to implement long-term policies. The idea is to give politicians the option to choose between a flexible and a fixed pension scheme. While in the fixed scheme, performance has no impact on the pension, the pension increases with short-term performance in the flexible scheme, using the vote share of the officeholder’s party in the next election as a performance indicator. Such a pension choice improves the well-being of citizens since officeholders are encouraged to invest in those activities that are beneficial for society. We analyze the properties and consequences of such a system. Finally, we extend the pension system with choice to non-last-term situations and derive a general welfare result.