01849cas a2200277 a 4500 AALejournalIMF002321 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781451847796 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Lockwood, Ben. Do Elections Always Motivate Incumbents? : Experimentation vs. Career Concerns / Ben Lockwood, Eric Le Borgne. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2003. 1 online resource (32 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students This paper studies a principal-agent model of the relationship between an incumbent officeholder and the electorate, where the officeholder is initially uninformed about her ability. If officeholder effort and ability interact in the "production function" that determines performance in office, then an officeholder has an incentive to experiment-that is, raise effort so that performance becomes a more accurate signal of her ability. Elections reduce the experimentation effect, and the reduction in this effect may more than offset the positive "career-concerns" effect of elections on effort. Moreover, when this occurs, appointment of officeholders may Pareto-dominate elections. Mode of access: Internet Disp-Formula ID imf WP imf Le Borgne, Eric. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2003/057 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2003/057/001.2003.issue-057-en.xml IMF e-Library