Towards a Globalized Competitive Market for Good Politics



Friday, 16. October 2015 | 8:30 Uhr

Speaker

Reiner Eichenberger

Organisation

University of Fribourg

Abstract

Economic prosperity, human welfare and individual freedom all depend on politics. However, the politicians’ incentives to care for the preferences of the citizens are weakened by three kinds of regulations of the political process. Firstly, in most countries only nationals and residents are allowed to run for political offices. Secondly, in the same way parties and firms are excluded. Thirdly, the compensation of politicians is fixed by law, and often much below the salary for a comparable job in the private sector.

This contribution proposes to abolish these regulations and to allow for an open international market for politicians. We suggest that the effect of such deregulations would be outstanding: Policy suppliers become active in several countries and, thus, can establish an international reputation i.e. for sticking to the election promises. Moreover, increasing explicit prices for political services will crowd out the implicit ones, such as bureaucratic rents and resources from special interests. The deregulation program will strengthen the influence of weakly organized groups and the governments’ incentives to pursue general welfare and to protect individual freedom.

Reiner Eichenberger

since 1998 Chair of Finance at the University of Fribourg (successor to Walter Wittmann)
1998 State Doctorate (Habilitation) in Economics at the University of Zurich
1991 – 1998 Assistant Lecturer at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich
1991 Conferral of Doctorate Dr. oec. Publ
1984 – 1991 Research Assistant at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich under Prof. Bruno S. Frey and Prof. Peter Zweifel
1961 Reiner Eichenberger was born in Zurich

 

 

 

 

 

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