Paying Politicians

We consider a society that has to elect an official who provides a public service
for the citizens. Potential candidates differ in their competence and every potential
candidate has private information about his opportunity cost to perform the task
of the elected official. We develop a new citizen candidate model with a unique
equilibrium to analyze citizens' candidature decisions.
Under some weak additional assumptions, bad candidates run with a higher
probability than good ones, and for unattractive positions, good candidates freeride
on bad ones. We also analyze the comparative static effects of wage increases
and cost of running on the potential candidates' entry decisions.