Representative policymakers? A behavioural experiment with French politicians

Abstract This study leverages an online behavioural experiment to analyse whether politicians' decisions align with citizens' preferences and with citizens' decisions within the same decision environment. We recruited 760 local politicians and 655 non‐politicians in France to participate as policymakers in a taxation‐redistribution game. In the game, two policymakers compete to choose a flat tax rate for a group of citizens selected from the French general population. We manipulate (i) the information provided to policymakers about citizens' preferred tax rates, and (ii) the incentives associated with applying citizens' preferred tax rate. We also measure policymakers' beliefs regarding citizens' preferences. We observe that policymakers react positively to information, but they often deviate from it, which can be mostly explained by their beliefs. Incentivizing responsiveness has no impact on these results. This suggests that politicians trade off their own preferences about the policy outcome with an intrinsic motivation to implement citizens' preferences. Finally, we find that politicians believe that citizens want lower tax rates and are more confident in their beliefs than non‐politicians. Once beliefs are accounted for, we observe minor differences between the two samples. Our findings highlight the importance of politicians' beliefs and non‐financial motivations as determinants of their decisions.