|
on Collective Decision-Making |
|
Issue of 2007‒08‒27
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Dietrich Franz; List Christian (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | All existing impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation require individual and collective judgment sets to be consistent and complete (in some recent results with completeness relaxed to deductive closure), arguably a demanding rationality requirement. They do not carry over to aggregation functions mapping profiles of (merely) consistent individual judgment sets to (merely) consistent collective ones. We prove that, whenever the agenda of propositions under consideration exhibits mild interconnections, any such aggregation function that is "neutral" between the acceptance and rejection of each proposition is dictatorial. We relate this theorem to the literature. |
| Keywords: | mathematical economics; |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2007021&r=cdm |
| By: | Marco Battaglini; Thomas Palfrey |
| Abstract: | We study dynamic committee bargaining over an infinite horizon with discounting. In each period a committee proposal is generated by a random recognition rule, the committee chooses between the proposal and a status quo by majority rule, and the voting outcome in period t becomes the status quo in period t+1. We study symmetric Markov equilibria of the resulting game and conduct an experiment to test hypotheses generated by the theory for pure distributional (divide-the-dollar) environments. In particular, we investigate the effects of concavity in the utility functions, the existence of a Condorcet winning alternative, and the discount factor (committee "impatience"). We report several new findings. Voting behavior is selfish and myopic. Status quo outcomes have great inertia. There are strong treatment effects, that are in the direction predicted by the Markov equilibrium. We find significant evidence of concave utility functions. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic bargaining, voting, experiments, divide-the-dollar,committees |
| JEL: | D71 D72 C78 C92 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1451&r=cdm |
| By: | Hodler, R.; Loertscher , S.; Rohner, D. |
| Abstract: | We study incumbency advantage in a dynamic game with incomplete information between an incumbent and a voter. The incumbent knows the true state of the world, e.g., the severity of an economic recession or the level of criminal activities, and can choose the quality of his policy. This quality and the state of the world determine the policy outcome, i.e., the economic growth rate or the number of crimes committed. The voter only observes the policy outcome and then decides whether to reelect the incumbent or not. Her preferences are such that she would reelect the incumbent under full information if and only if the state of the world is above a given threshold level. In equilibrium, the incumbent is reelected in more states of the world than he would be under full information. In particular, he chooses ine±cient policies and generates mediocre policy outcomes whenever the voter's induced belief distribution will be such that her expected utility of reelecting the incumbent exceeds her expected utility of electing the opposition candidate. Hence, there is an incumbency advantage through ineficient policies. We provide empirical evidence consistent with the prediction that reelection concerns may induce incumbents to generate mediocre outcomes. Key words: Elections, Incumbency Advantage, Political Economics. |
| JEL: | D72 C73 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0738&r=cdm |
| By: | Ghosal, Sayantan (Department of Economics, University of Warwick); Proto, Eugenio (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how intra-elite confict results in transition to democracy, characterized as both franchise extension to, and lowering the individual cost of collective political action for, an initially disorganized non-elite. Two risk averse elites compete for the appropriation of a unit of social surplus with initial uncertainty about their future relative bargaining power. Both elements of a democracy are necessary to ensure that the two elites credibly commit to a mutually fairer share of the surplus and we derive sufficient conditions for democracy to emerge in equilibrium. Our formal analysis accounts for stylized facts that emerge from an analysis of Indian and West European democracies. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:807&r=cdm |
| By: | David de la Croix; Matthias Doepke |
| Abstract: | The governments of nearly all countries are major providers of primary and secondary education to their citizens. In some countries, however, public schools coexist with private schools, while in others the government is the sole provider of education. In this study, we ask why different societies make different choices regarding the mix of private and public schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public schooling expenditures. In a given political environment, high income inequality leads to more private education, as rich people opt out of the public system. More private education, in turn, results in an improved quality of public education, because public spending can be concentrated on fewer students. Comparing across political systems, we find that concentration of political power can lead to multiple equilibria in the determination of public education spending. The main predictions of the theory are consistent with state-level and micro data from the United States as well as cross-country evidence from the PISA study. |
| JEL: | H42 H52 I22 O10 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13319&r=cdm |
| By: | Ryo Arawatari (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University); Kazuo Mino (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we construct a simple dynamic two-party electoral competition model in which the degree of political instability is endogenously determined: which has never been studied so far. We consider the campaign contributions as stock variable which is gradually accumulated by both partyfs direct investment and induced the Markov-perfect Nash equilibrium. We then examine the stability of the symmetric steady state and find that it may be either totally stable or unstable depending on the parameter values involved in the model. We also found that under certain conditions, at least near the symmetric steady state, there exists indeterminancy of equilibrium path: there exist both stable and unstable paths, that is, under given levels of political assets, both high instability political system and low instability political system can emerge depending on expectations of political parties. |
| Keywords: | Political assets; Dynamic political economy; Differential game; Markovperfect Nash equilibrium; Two-party model |
| JEL: | C73 D72 D78 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0732&r=cdm |
| By: | Hans Pitlik (WIFO) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates empirically the interaction between economic growth performance and political institutions in producing free-market reform. In particular, we explore whether political regime types shape systematically government policy responses to good or bad growth performance, employing panel econometric techniques and using recently updated data for economic reform and political institutions. Contrary to conventional wisdom we find that a bad growth performance is conducive to reforms only in democracies, but not in autocracies. Democratic rule seems to be favorable for policy liberalization in general, but a very good growth performance weakens liberalization incentives considerably. |
| Keywords: | democracy, crisis hypothesis, market-oriented reform, political credibility |
| Date: | 2007–08–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2007:i:300&r=cdm |
| By: | Klor, Esteban F; Shayo, Moses |
| Abstract: | We design an experiment to study the effects of social identity on preferences over redistribution. The experiment highlights the trade-off between social identity concerns and maximization of monetary payoffs. Subjects belonging to two distinct natural groups are randomly assigned gross incomes and vote over alternative redistributive tax regimes, where the regime is chosen by majority rule. We find that a significant subset of the subjects systematically deviate from monetary payoff maximization towards the tax rate that benefits their group when the monetary cost of doing so is not significantly high. These deviations cannot be explained by efficiency concerns, inequality aversion, reciprocity, social learning or conformity. Finally, we show that behaviour in the lab helps explain the relationship between reported income and stated preferences over redistribution observed in surveys. |
| Keywords: | Experimental Economics; Income Redistribution; Social Identity; Social Preferences |
| JEL: | C92 D63 D72 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6406&r=cdm |
| By: | Alex Gershkov; Benny Moldovanu |
| Date: | 2007–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:843644000000000381&r=cdm |