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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2010‒07‒24
twelve papers chosen by |
| By: | Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the factors that shaped Kenyan’s voting intentions in the 2007 presidential election. Using data from a public opinion survey conducted two weeks before the election we are able to evaluate the relative importance of what shaped voting behavior comprehensively, taking into account factors such as ethnicity, access to public services, incidence of poverty and wealth differences across ethnic groups and across generations. We find strong evidence that ethnic identity was the main factor determining voting intentions and to a lesser extent grievances, economic well-being, and access to public and private goods. However, the relative importance of these factors depends on whether Kenyan voters identify themselves first and foremost in terms of their ethnicity, occupation or nationality. Those who identify themselves in terms of their ethnicity were influenced the most by access to public services. This evidence supports theories that suggest ethnic identity is a proxy used by voters to assess which candidate will give them greater access to public goods. |
| Keywords: | Voting behavior, ethnic identity, Kenya |
| JEL: | D72 D01 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:10-06&r=cdm |
| By: | Stefan Dercon; Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero |
| Abstract: | Following the 2007 disputed Kenyan Presidential election unprecedented levels of violence erupted across the country adding to the history of troubled elections in Africa. This paper offers quantitative and qualitative evidence on the incidence, impacts and issues that triggered electoral violence. Using two surveys conducted before and after the election we find that one out of three Kenyans were affected by the violence regardless of their ethnicity and wealth. The chances of being a victim of violence were higher in areas with land conflicts and where politically-connected gangs operated. Violence, which was mainly triggered by the perception that the election had been rigged, reduced trust and social capital among communities making violence more likely to reoccur. |
| Keywords: | Voting, Electoral Violence, Rule of Law, Institutions, Africa, Kenya |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:10-12&r=cdm |
| By: | Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero |
| Abstract: | The Kenyan Constituency Development Fund (CDF) aims to alleviate poverty by allocating resources to constituencies which MPs and residents decide how to spend. In this paper we assess whether MPs’ re-election chances were affected by their management of the CDF. For this purpose we analyse the type of projects implemented by the CDF and residents’ opinion about their MP and the CDF. We find that MPs’ re-election chances were influenced by MPs’ ethnicity and by the way MPs allocated the CDF. MPs who run the most projects on education and the least on other projects such as health or water were less likely to be re-elected. |
| Keywords: | Decentralization, Accountability, Elections, Africa, Kenya |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:10-09&r=cdm |
| By: | Farber, Henry (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | The standard theoretical solution to the observation of substantial turnout in large elections is that individuals receive utility from the act of voting. However, this leaves open the question of whether or not there is a significant margin on which individuals consider the effect of their vote on the outcome in deciding whether or not to vote. In order to address this issue, I study turnout in union representation elections in the U.S. (government supervised secret ballot elections, generally held at the workplace, on the question of whether the workers would like to be represented by a union). These elections provide a particularly good laboratory to study voter behavior because many of the elections have sufficiently few eligible voters that individuals can have a substantial probability of being pivotal. I develop a rational choice model of turnout in these elections, and I implement this model empirically using data on over 75,000 of these elections held from 1972-2009. The results suggest that most individuals (over 80 percent) vote in these elections independent of consideration of the likelihood that they will be pivotal. Among the remainder, the probability of voting is related to variables that influence the probability of a vote being pivotal (election size and expected closeness of the election). These findings are consistent with the standard rational choice model. |
| Keywords: | labor unions, voting, voter turnout |
| JEL: | D72 J51 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5033&r=cdm |
| By: | Gabriele Esposito (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Eric Guerci (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Nobuyuki Hanaki (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579, Economics Department - Université de Tsukuba); Xiaoyan Lu (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Naoki Watanabe (Economics Department - Université de Tsukuba) |
| Abstract: | We investigate experimentally whether subjects can learn, from their limited experiences, about relationships between the distribution of votes in a group and associated voting powers in weighted majority voting systems (WMV). Subjects are asked to play two-stage games repeatedly. In the second stage of the game, a group of four subjects bargains over how to divide fixed amount of resources among themselves through theWMV determined in the first stage. In the first stage, two out of four subjects in the group, independently and simultaneously, choose from two options that jointly determine the distribution of a given number of votes among four members. These two subjects face a 2 × 2 matrix that shows the distribution of votes, but not associated voting powers, among four members for each outcome. Therefore, to obtain higher rewards, subjects need to learn about the latter by actually playing the second stage. The matrix subjects face in the first stage changes during the experiment to test subjects' understanding of relationships between distribution of votes and voting power. The results of our experiments suggest that although (a) many subjects learn to choose, in the votes apportionment stage, the option associated with a higher voting power, (b) it is not easy for them to learn the underlying relationships between the two and correctly anticipate their voting powers when they face a new distribution of votes. |
| Keywords: | experiment, learning, voting power, bargaining |
| Date: | 2010–07–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00501840_v1&r=cdm |
| By: | Ying Chen (Arizona State University); Hülya Eraslan (John Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze a legislative bargaining game in which parties privately informed about their preferences bargain over an ideological and a distributive decision. Communication takes place before a proposal is offered and majority rule voting determines the outcome. When the private information pertains to the ideological intensities but the ideological positions are publicly known, it may not be possible to have informative communication from the legislator who is ideologically distant from the proposer, but the more moderate legislator can communicate whether he would "compromise" or fight" on ideology. If instead the private information pertains to the ideological positions, then all parties may convey whether they will "cooperate," "compromise," or fight" on ideology. When the uncertainty is about ideological intensity, the proposer is always better on making proposals for the two dimensions together despite separable preferences, but when the uncertainty is about ideological positions, bundling can result in informational loss which hurts the proposer. |
| JEL: | C78 D72 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koc:wpaper:1021&r=cdm |
| By: | Jeremy Petranka (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business) |
| Abstract: | Research in the behavioral psychology of voting has found that voters tend to be poorly informed, highly responsive to candidate personality, and follow a "fast and frugal" heuristic. This paper analyzes optimal candidate strategies in a two-party election in which voters are assumed to behave according to these traits. Under this assumption, candidates face a trade-off between appealing to a broader base and being overly ambiguous in their policy stances. A decrease in the cost of ambiguity within this model offers a parsimonious justification for the increase in voter independence, candidate ambiguity, and party politics that empirical studies have revealed over the last five decades. I additionally argue a decrease in the cost of ambiguity is a natural result of the primary system, campaign finance reform, and changing media environment. |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2010-07&r=cdm |
| By: | Samuel Berlinski (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College, London); Torun Dewan |
| Abstract: | <p>We use evidence from the Second Reform Act, introduced in the United Kingdom in 1867, to analyze the impact on electoral outcomes of extending the vote to the unskilled urban population. By exploiting the sharp change in the electorate caused by franchise extension, we separate the effect of reform from that of underlying constituency level traits correlated with the voting population. Although we find that the franchise affected electoral competition and candidate selection, there is no evidence that relates Liberal electoral support to changes in the franchise rules. Our results are robust to various sources of endogeneity.</p> |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:10/08&r=cdm |
| By: | Heizler (Cohen), Odelia (Hebrew University, Jerusalem); Kimhi, Ayal (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the effect of social networks and belonging to minority groups (or race) on the probability of winning in reality television shows. We develop a theoretical model that studies viewer behavior by presenting a framework of competition between two contestants from two different groups. The results are examined empirically using unique contestant data from the highly popular reality show "A Star Is Born", the Israeli counterpart of "American Idol". Our main finding is that social networks and belonging to minority groups play key roles in the contestant’s victory, but their effects are nonlinear: the social network effect is U-shaped, whereas that of belonging to a minority group follows an inverted U shape. Beyond the world of reality TV, this paper sheds light on the general behavior of social networks as well. |
| Keywords: | American Idol, social networks, minority groups, contest, voting |
| JEL: | J15 D71 P16 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5056&r=cdm |
| By: | Finn Christensen (Department of Economics, Towson University); James Manley (Department of Economics, Towson University); Louise Laurence (Department of Economics, Towson University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the widespread awarding of faculty merit pay at a large public university accurately reflects productivity. We show that pairwise voting on a quality standard by a committee can in theory be consistent with observed allocation patterns. However, the data indicate only nominal adherence to a quality standard. Departments with more severe compression issues are more likely to award merit pay as a countermeasure and some departments appear to be motivated by nonpecuniary incentives. Much of the variance in merit pay allocation remains unexplained. These results suggest reform is needed to improve transparency in the merit system. |
| JEL: | D7 I20 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tow:wpaper:2010-13&r=cdm |
| By: | Emilio Calvo (ERI-CES); Maria Esther Gutierrez (Universidad del País Vasco/E.H.U) |
| Abstract: | A new axiomatic characterization of the two-step Shapley value (Kamijo, 2009) is presented based on a solidarity principle of the members of any union: when the game changes due to the addition or deletion of players outside the union, all members of the union will share the same gains/losses. |
| Keywords: | Games with a coalition structure. Owen value. The two-step Shapley value. Solidarity. |
| JEL: | C71 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0810&r=cdm |
| By: | Pablo Amorós (Department of Economic Theory, Universidad de Málaga) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the problem of choosing the w contestants who will win a competition within a group of n > w competitors when all jurors commonly observe who the w best contestants are, but they may be biased. We study conditions on the configuration of the jury so that it is possible to induce the jurors to always choose the best contestants, whoever they are. If the equilibrium concept is dominant strategies, the condition is very strong: there must be at least one juror who is totally impartial, and the planner must have some information about who this juror is. If the equilibrium concept is Nash (or subgame perfect) equilibria the condition is less demanding: for each pair of contestants, the planner must know at least one juror who is not biased in favor/against any of them. Furthermore, the latter condition is also necessary for any other equilibrium concept. |
| Keywords: | Mechanism design, Social choice |
| JEL: | C72 D71 D78 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mal:wpaper:2010-6&r=cdm |