Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
College/Unit
Chambers College of Business and Economics
Department/Program/Center
Economics
Abstract
In the U.S. many public services are provided by individuals who are selected in local elections. We ask whether elections encourage public actors to be responsive to citizens. We design a novel field experiment where we send an information request to a random sample of prosecutor offices. Whether someone replies to the request is our measurement of responsiveness. We show that offices whose head is up for re-election are more likely to respond. We also show that offices in states that appoint their local prosecutors are substantially less likely to respond than a matched set of offices with elected leadership.
Digital Commons Citation
McCannon, Bryan and Williams, Corey, "Do Elections Encourage Public Actors To Be More Responsive?" (2022). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 3108.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/3108
Source Citation
McCannon, Bryan C. and Williams, Corey, Do Elections Encourage Public Actors to be More Responsive? (November 23, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3738374 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3738374