Can elected officeholders use their power to extract rents for themselves, or can their accountable behavior be ensured by a threat of future elections? It has been argued that such a threat may fail, particularly if voters are forward looking and elections serve a selection purpose. We consider the accountability problem in elections with selection concerns and multiple voters. When there are multiple voters, pivotality considerations may support equilibria where incumbents behave accountably even with a selection incentive in their favor. In an accompanying laboratory experiment we find that there is heterogeneity among incumbents in terms of their accountability—some incumbents extract much, others do not. Voters are always more likely to re-elect the incumbent if there is a higher future benefit to the voters from her re-election, but less so if they extract rents. An interesting equilibrium is when the incumbent creates a majority group of voters and treats them favorably, with this favored majority voting for her. Here voters’ beliefs about their pivot probabilities are tied to whether they are in this majority group or not.

中文翻译：

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投票中的制裁、选择和关键性：理论和实验结果

民选公职人员是否可以利用他们的权力为自己榨取租金，或者他们的行为是否可以通过未来选举的威胁来确保？有人认为，这种威胁可能会失败，特别是如果选民具有前瞻性并且选举服务于选择目的。我们考虑了选举问题和多个选民的选举中的问责问题。当有多个选民时，关键性考虑可能会支持平衡，在这种情况下，即使有对他们有利的选择激励，现任者也会负责任地行事。在随附的实验室实验中，我们发现现任者在问责制方面存在异质性——一些在职者提取了很多，而另一些则没有。如果她的连任对选民有更高的未来利益，选民总是更有可能再次选举现任者，但如果他们收取租金，情况就不那么好了。一个有趣的平衡是现任者创造了一个多数选民群体并优待他们，这个偏爱的多数投票给她。在这里，选民对其枢轴概率的看法与他们是否属于这个多数群体有关。