Nov

26

The Federal/State Conundrum

November 26, 2006 | Comments Off | Joshua Gans

Andrew Leigh wonders why Labor has lost the last 4 Federal election but has won the last 20 State and Territory elections. Here is my two cents worth: it comes down to the pool of talent. Labor and Liberal have fixed talent pools. The best talent will migrate to the forum the gives the best chance in government. So for Labor the best talent stays State-based with no incentive to move to the Federal level because things are going badly for them there. Similarly, Liberal talent is quite happy to by-pass the State-level and try their hands at Federal politics. So we have an equilibrium whereby State politics is dominated by Labor and Federal by the Liberals.


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