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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2006‒05‒27
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Stefan Krause; Fabio Mendez |
| Abstract: | We present an empirical study of voting behavior to analyze the impact of opportunism; that is, whenever political incumbents implement economic policies strategically and in connection with general elections in order to gain votes. We derive a measure for opportunism that is isolated from the impact of aggregate economic conditions, such as the levels of economic growth and consumer price inflation. In contrast with most papers available on these issues, we do not ask whether political parties behave opportunistically; instead, we ask whether they receive a direct, electoral punishment or incentive for doing so. Our results indicate that the electorate punishes an incumbent party for behaving opportunistically, controlling for economic conditions and political variables. The party in power receives a significantly lower percentage of votes whenever it follows expansionary policies during the election year, relative to the other years of its tenure. |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emo:wp2003:0604&r=cdm |
| By: | Helmut Rainer; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | The level of trust inherent in a society is important for a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper investigates how individuals' attitudes toward social and institutional trust are shaped by the political regime in which they live. The German reunification is a unique natural experiment that allows us to conduct such a study. Using data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) and from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we obtain two sets of results. On one side, we find that, shortly after reunification, East Germans displayed a significantly less trusting attitude than West Germans. This suggests a negative effect of communism in East Germany versus democracy in West Germany on social and institutional trust. However, the experience of democracy by East Germans since reunification did not serve to increase levels of social trust significantly. In fact, we cannot reject the hypothesis that East Germans, after more than a decade of democracy, have the same levels of social distrust as shortly after the collapse of communism. In trying to understand the underlying causes, we show that the persistence of social distrust in the East can be explained by negative economic outcomes that many East Germans experienced in the post-reunification period. Our main conclusion is that democracy can foster trust in post-communist societies only when citizens' economic outcomes are right. |
| Date: | 2006–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esx:essedp:613&r=cdm |
| By: | Olivier Donni (THEMA, University of Cergy-Pontoise and IZA Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We adopt the collective approach to consumer behavior with egoistic agents, and assume that the household consumption is either private or public. We then show that (i) household demands have to satisfy testable constraints and (ii) some elements of the decision process can be retrieved from observed behavior. These results are based on a conditional demand (‘m-demand’) framework in which household demands are directly derived from the marginal rates of substitution. Finally, we present an empirical application using the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. Overall, the data turn out to be consistent with the theoretical model. |
| Keywords: | collective decision, intra-household distribution, demand analysis, private good, public good, Lindahl price |
| JEL: | D11 D12 H41 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2137&r=cdm |
| By: | Andrew Leigh (SPEAR Centre, RSSS, ANU) |
| Abstract: | I explore the voting patterns of trade union members in Australian elections conducted between 1966 and 2004, and find that on average, 63 percent of trade union members vote for the Australian Labor Party. Despite the fact that union membership declined from around one-half of the workforce in the early-1980s to one-quarter of the workforce in the early-2000s, unionists have not become more pro-Labor. Analysing unionists’ voting behaviour by gender, I find that male unionists were more pro-Labor than female unionists in the 1960s, but the reverse is true today. Recognising that union membership may be endogenous with respect to political ideology, I instrument for union membership and conclude that the observed association between union membership and voting reflects a causal relationship. |
| Keywords: | voting, elections, unions, endogeneity, instrumental variables |
| JEL: | D72 J51 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:dpaper:516&r=cdm |