Content area
Full Text
Do voters effectively hold elected officials accountable for policy decisions? Using data on natural disasters, government spending, and election returns, we show that voters reward the incumbent presidential party for delivering disaster relief spending, but not for investing in disaster preparedness spending. These inconsistencies distort the incentives of public officials, leading the government to underinvest in disaster preparedness, thereby causing substantial public welfare losses. We estimate that $1 spent on preparedness is worth about $15 in terms of the future damage it mitigates. By estimating both the determinants of policy decisions and the consequences of those policies, we provide more complete evidence about citizen competence and government accountability.
Do voters effectively hold elected officials accountable for policy decisions? Studies of political behavior are divided on their views of voter competence, not only in the domain of vote choice but also in the domain of attitude formation. On the one hand, The Michigan School conceived of the public as myopic, uninformed (Campbell et al. 1960), and lacking an organized belief system of political attitudes (Converse 1964). Subsequent research showed that voters lack political knowledge (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996), possess misinformation (Kuklinski et al. 2000), and often make seemingly irrational electoral decisions (Bartels 2008; Caplan 2007; Lau and Redlawsk 2006). Although not always explicitly demonstrated, these studies suggest that voter incompetence is normatively undesirable because it reduces social welfare.
On the other hand, Key (1966) argued that the electorate is "responsible," in that citizens often vote to reward or punish the incumbent administration for its stewardship of the country (Fiorina 1981; Kramer 1971). Even if voters are not fully informed, they can rely on information shortcuts such as cues and endorsements to make sensible decisions (Lupia 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Popkin 1991; Sniderman et al. 1991). The information market induced by electoral competition incentivizes politicians to provide voters with such information (Wittman 1995). Moving from the individual to the aggregate level, Page and Shapiro (1992) argued that even if individual voters exhibit unsophisticated and unstructured conceptions of politics, collective preferences are well organized and respond sensibly and swiftly to government action and national events. These studies generally conclude that citizen competence is sufficient to the tasks of electoral accountability.
However, there exist important limitations...