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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2009‒10‒31
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Sobbrio, Francesco |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an empirical investigation of electoral participation and communicative voting in 14 European countries. We estimate a multi-level voting process where individuals face a participation decision (whether to vote or abstain) and a voting decision (whether to vote strategically for a likely winner party or as communicating for a sure loser party). Our main findings can be summarized as follows. First, individuals who are either independent or uninformed are less likely to turnout. However, being both independent and uninformed does not have any statistically significant effect on electoral participation. Thus, our results question the empirical relevance of the swing voter's curse theory in large elections. Second, the probability of voting as communicating is positively related with the level of education and the degree of dissatisfaction with the political system. Finally, political preferences and institutional features characterizing the functioning of the political system and of the media market have a significant effect both on electoral participation and on the voting decision. |
| Keywords: | Electoral turnout; Swing Voter's Curse; Communicative voting; Strategic voting; Multi-level qualitative choices |
| JEL: | D72 C25 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:18216&r=cdm |
| By: | Lijue Xie (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Michel Grabisch (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | In the classical setting of cooperative game theory, it is always assumed that all coalitions are feasible. However in many real situations, there are restrictions on the set of coalitions, for example duo to communication, order or hierarchy on the set of players, etc. There are already many works dealing with games on restricted set of coalitions, defining many different structures for the set of feasible coalitions, called set systems. We propose in this paper to consider k-regular set systems, that is, set systems having all maximal chains of the same length k. This is somehow related to communication graphs. We study in this perspective the core of games defined on k-regular set systems. We show that the core may be unbounded and without vertices in some situations. |
| Keywords: | Cooperative game ; feasible coalition ; core |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00423922_v2&r=cdm |
| By: | Martijn Cremers; Roberta Romano |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact on shareholder voting of the mutual fund voting disclosure regulation adopted by the SEC in 2003, using a paired sample of management proposals on executive equity incentive compensation plans submitted before and after the rule change. While voting support for management has decreased over time, we find no evidence that mutual funds’ support for management declined after the rule change, as expected by advocates of disclosure. In fact, we find evidence of increased support for management by mutual funds after the change. There is some evidence that firms sponsoring such proposals both before and after the rule change differ from those sponsoring a proposal only before the change. For example, firms are more likely to sponsor a proposal both before and after the rule change if they have higher mutual fund ownership. Such endogeneity could partly explain our findings of increased support after the rule. |
| JEL: | G2 K22 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15449&r=cdm |
| By: | Smith, John |
| Abstract: | We interpret the social identity literature and examine its economic implications. We model a population of agents from two exogenous and well defined social groups. Agents are randomly matched to play a reduced form bargaining game. We show that this struggle for resources drives a conflict through the rational destruction of surplus. We assume that the population contains both unbiased and biased players. Biased players aggressively discriminate against members of the other social group. The existence and specification of the biased player is motivated by the social identity literature. For unbiased players, group membership has no payoff relevant consequences. We show that the unbiased players can contribute to the conflict by aggressively discriminating and that this behavior is consistent with existing empirical evidence. |
| Keywords: | reputation; identity; conflict |
| JEL: | L14 D74 C72 |
| Date: | 2009–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2213&r=cdm |
| By: | Sobbrio, Francesco |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study a model where voters have state-contingent preferences over policies and lobbies engage in influence activities to affect the information that a media outlet collects on the state of the world. The media outlet acts as a "filter" between lobbies and voters. It has to decide what to communicate to voters given the information it collects and its idiosyncratic bias. We show that, by targeting voters, lobbies are able to indirectly influence the political outcome and thus create a distortion in the political process. When the media outlet has a small idiosyncratic bias the (unique) equilibrium is characterized by a large level of lobbies' influence activities and no "news-slanting" by the media outlet. When the media outlet's idiosyncratic bias is large, the (unique) equilibrium involves a low level of lobbies' influence activities and a high probability of "news-slanting" by the media outlet. Moreover, we show that a higher idiosyncratic bias of the media outlet may be associated with a lower policy distortion and a higher voters' welfare. On the other hand, public policy measures aimed at increasing the cost of lobbies' influence activities would decrease the distortion in the policy outcome and increase voters' welfare. Finally, asymmetries in lobbies' influence activities lead to different probabilities of "news-slanting" by different media outlet's types. |
| Keywords: | Indirect Lobbying; Media Bias; Influence Activities; Cheap-Talk |
| JEL: | D82 D72 D83 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:18215&r=cdm |