New Economics Papers
on Collective Decision-Making
Issue of 2008‒01‒26
ten papers chosen by
  1. Voting over Selective Immigration Policies with Immigration Aversion By Russo, Giuseppe
  2. Federal Institutions and the Democratic Transition: Learning from South Africa By Robert P. Inman; Daniel L. Rubinfeld
  3. Integration without democracy? Three conceptions of European Security Policy in transformation By Helene Sjursen
  4. Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism By Robert P. Inman
  5. Do Walmartians Ruled? The political power of an emerging middle class in Mexico. By Hector J. Villarreal; Ricardo Cantú
  6. If it’s Broken, Don’t Fix it: The Government of the Euro area in the EU “Reform Treaty” By Éloi Laurent
  7. Power distribution and endogenous segregation By Catherine Bros
  8. Some order dualities in logic, games and choices By Bernard Monjardet
  9. Polanyi in Brussels: European institutions and the embedding of markets in society By James Caporaso; Sidney Tarrow
  10. Agreeing to disagree in a countable space of equiprobable states By João Correia-da-Silva
  1. By: Russo, Giuseppe
    Abstract: The claim that "skilled immigration is welcome" is often associated to the increasing adoption of selective immigration policies. I study the voting over differentiated immigration policies in a two-country, three-factor general equilibrium model where there exist skilled and unskilled workers, migration decisions are endogenous, enforcing immigration restriction is costly, and natives dislike unskilled immigration. According to my findings, decisions over border closure are made to protect the median voter when her capital endowment is sufficiently small. Therefore I argue that the professed favour for skilled immigration veils the protection for the insiders. This result is confirmed by the observation that entry is rationed for both skilled and unskilled workers. Moreover, immigration aversion helps to explain the existence of entry barriers for unskilled workers in countries where the majority of voters is skilled.
    Keywords: Selective immigration policies; multidimensional voting; Condorcet winner.
    JEL: F22 D72 J18
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6845&r=cdm
  2. By: Robert P. Inman; Daniel L. Rubinfeld
    Abstract: We present a model of a peaceful transition in South Africa from white, elite rule under apartheid to a multi-racial democracy. We ask how can the emerging majority credibly promise not to exploit the once ruling elite? Under South Africa’s "democratic federalism" the constitution creates an annual policy game where the new majority and the elite each control one policy instrument of importance to the other. The game has a stable, stationary democratic equilibrium that the elite prefer to autocratic rule. For the elite, the move to democracy means higher tax rates, but also higher economic growth; democracy is preferred to apartheid if the elite's rate of time preference is less than the transition's rate of return.
    JEL: H11 H77 P26
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13733&r=cdm
  3. By: Helene Sjursen
    Keywords: democracy; intergovernmentalism; international relations; institutions; sovereignty; supranationalism
    Date: 2007–12–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:reconx:p0019&r=cdm
  4. By: Robert P. Inman
    Abstract: What is it about federal governance that makes it so attractive to economists, political philosophers, and legal scholars and is there any evidence that would suggest all this attention is warranted? Proponents see federalism as a means to more efficient public and private economies, as the foundation for increased political participation and democratic stability, and as important check on governmental abuses of personal rights and liberties. This study provides a working definition of federal governance and classifies a sample of 73 countries as either a constitutionally-based federal democracy, an administratively-based federal democracy, a unitary democracy, a federal dictatorship, or a unitary dictatorship. Governance is then related to eleven measures of economic, democratic, and rights performance. Three conclusions follow. First, decentralized policy-making does have a unique contribution to make to a society's ability to enforce property rights, to protect political and civil rights, and then because of such rights protections, to enhance private sector economic performance. Second, while policy decentralization is the key to federalism's strong rights and economic performance and can be achieved within a unitary government by fiat, constitutionally established provincial (or state) governments provide an extra and important protective barrier for policy decentralization. Federal institutions protect policy decentralization, and policy decentralization provides federalism's valued outcomes. Third, federalism needs democracy; there is no evidence that adding policy decentralization or provinces to a dictatorship significantly improves a dictatorship's economic or rights performance.
    JEL: H11 H77 P48
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13735&r=cdm
  5. By: Hector J. Villarreal; Ricardo Cantú
    Abstract: This paper questions if an increase in consumption of durable goods -such as electric appliances, associated in the media with an emerging middle class- could have aided the incumbent party to retain the Mexican presidency in 2006 -again, associated in the media with the backing of the economic model by voters. Important data limitations forced to employ indirect tests of these and to rely on correlations rather than causalities -with the associated identification problems. Nonetheless, it was not able to reject the hypothesis alluded. Though, in a tight election, a small effect could make the difference, and this analysis suggests that this very probably happened.
    Keywords: Mexico, Walmartians, middle-class, middle class, elections, 2006, durable goods, electric appliances
    JEL: D12 O54 C81 C10 C31 I30 I31
    Date: 2007–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egb:wpaper:20081&r=cdm
  6. By: Éloi Laurent
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:0732&r=cdm
  7. By: Catherine Bros (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of the process of segregation formation. The claim is that segregation does not originate from prejudice or exogenous psychological factors. Rather it is the product of strategic interactions among social groups in a setting where one group has captured power. While using a model featuring random matching and repeated games, it is shown that whenever one group seizes power, members of other groups will perceive additional value in forging long term relationships with the mighty. They will systematically cooperate with the latter either because it is in their interest to do so or because they do not have other choice. The mighty natural response to this yearning to cooperate is to refuse intergroup relationships. The dominated group will best reply to this new situation by in turn rejecting the relationships and a segregation equilibrium emerges. Segregation stems from the systematic cooperation by one group with another. However, not all societies that have experienced power captures converge towards segregation. It is shown that the proportion of individuals that are actually powerful within the mighty group determines convergence towards segregation.
    Keywords: Segration, discrimination, power, caste, repeated games, prisoner's dilemma, clubs, status, social organizations.
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00204974_v1&r=cdm
  8. By: Bernard Monjardet (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I)
    Abstract: We first present the concept of duality appearing in order theory, i.e. the notions of dual isomorphism and of Galois connection. Then, we describe two fundamental dualities, the duality extension/intention associated with a binary relation between two sets, and the duality between implicational systems and closure systems. Finally, we present two "concrete" dualities occuring in social choice and in choice functions theories.
    Keywords: antiexchange closure operator, Galois connection, implicational system, path-independent choice function, simple game.
    Date: 2007–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00202326_v1&r=cdm
  9. By: James Caporaso; Sidney Tarrow
    Keywords: European Court of Justice; free movement; institutions; labour contract; political economy; regulations; Single Market
    Date: 2008–01–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:reconx:p0020&r=cdm
  10. By: João Correia-da-Silva (CEMPRE and Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
    Abstract: An example is given in which agents agree to disagree, showing that Aumann's (1976) Agreement Theorem does not extend to a countable space of equiprobable states of nature. Even in this unorthodox setting, if the sets of the information partitions are intervals, an agreement theorem holds. A result that describes the margin for disagreement is also obtained.
    Keywords: Agreeing to disagree, Interactive epistemology, Bounded rationality.
    JEL: D82 D84
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:260&r=cdm
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