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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2010‒12‒23
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Olga Popova |
| Abstract: | This paper examines to what extent the distribution of votes and voting behavior of people with different employment status are affected by regional differences in corruption. Using data from the Russian Parliamentary (State Duma) Elections 1999 and 2003, I develop and estimate a SUR system of equations which takes into account specific features of the Russian electoral system. The paper distinguishes between hard and perceived measures of corruption and analyzes the effects of corruption on the voting shares of particular parties and on voters' participation in elections. Additionally, a series of Monte Carlo simulations are performed to analyze the effects of corruption on the distribution of votes. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp428&r=cdm |
| By: | Peters Hans; Roy Souvik; Storcken Ton (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | We consider voting rules on a multidimensional policy space for a continuum of voters with elliptic preferences. Assuming continuity, y-strategy-proofness - meaning that coalitions of size smaller or equal to a small number y cannot manipulate - and unanimity, we show that such rules are decomposable into one-dimensional rules. Requiring, additionally, anonymity leads to an impossibility result. The paper can be seen as an extension of the model of Border and Jordan (1983) to a continuum of voters. Contrary, however, to their finite case where single voters are atoms, in our model with nonatomic voters even a small amount of strategy-proofness leads to an impossibility. |
| Keywords: | microeconomics ; |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2010064&r=cdm |
| By: | Amihai GLAZER; Stef PROOST |
| Abstract: | A winning coalition which sets policy cannot always ensure that members of the coalition will be the ones getting benefits. Different jurisdictions (including members of the winning coalition) may then engage in costly rent seeking. Maximizing the welfare of the winning coalition may therefore require providing services to jurisdictions which are not members of the winning coalition, thereby reducing rent seeking by members of the winning coalition. The paper shows how this mechanism can generate insuffcient supply of public services, and offers another explanation for the use of co-funding requirements by the central government. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces10.31&r=cdm |
| By: | Miguel Rocha de Sousa (Universidade de Évora, Departmento de Economia e NICPRI-UE) |
| Abstract: | We present an economic growth model with human capital, based upon Arrow (1962), in which we assess the impact of political leadership change either in governments or political parties. The change of leadership might be seen as a change in embedded human capital, and thus we might evaluate the loss or gain for society due to these political activities. The approach is theoretical using Arrowian economic setting. We formulate the conditions in which it is worth it, or how long does it take to recover from a political leadership change. The embedded process is an economic one, known as ?learning by doing?, but this time applied to political processes. |
| Keywords: | Arrow?s model, Human capital, Learning by doing (LBD), Political leadership, Rotation of leaders, Time to recover from political leadership change |
| JEL: | J24 O41 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:evo:wpecon:5_2010&r=cdm |
| By: | Dietrich Franz; Spiekermann Kai (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the `wisdom of crowds''. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises---voter independence---is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem''s misleading conclusion that ''large crowds are infallible''. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ''large crowds are fallible but better than small groups''. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. |
| Keywords: | mathematical economics; |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2010066&r=cdm |
| By: | André Casajus (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | We suggest new characterizations of the Banzhaf value without the symmetry axiom, which reveal that the characterizations by Lehrer (1988, International Journal of Game Theory 17, 89-99) and Nowak (1997, International Journal of Game Theory 26, 127-141) as well as most of the characterizations by Casajus (2010, Theory and De- cision, forthcoming) are redundant. Further, we explore symmetry implications of Lehrer's 2-efficiency axiom. |
| Keywords: | Banzhaf value, amalgamation, symmetry, 2-efficiency |
| JEL: | C71 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:442&r=cdm |
| By: | Dietrich Franz; Spiekermann Kai (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | Democratic decision-making is often defended on grounds of the ''wisdom of crowds'': decisions are more likely to be correct if they are based on many independent opinions, so a typical argument in social epistemology. But what does it mean to have independent opinions? Opinions can be probabilistically dependent (threatening the ''wisdom of crowds'') even if individuals form their opinion in causal isolation from each other. We distinguish four probabilistic notions of opinion independence. Which of them holds depends on how individuals are causally affected by environmental factors such as commonly perceived evidence. In a general theorem, we identify causal conditions guaranteeing each kind of opinion independence. These results have implications for whether and how ''wisdom of crowds'' arguments are possible, and how truth-conducive institutions can be designed. |
| Keywords: | mathematical economics; |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2010067&r=cdm |
| By: | Fay DUNKERLEY; Amihai GLAZER; Stef PROOST |
| Abstract: | Gasoline taxes are the most important tax on car use. The question naturally arises as to what tax would be adopted by a government that responds to the preferences of the public. To address that issue, we begin with the standard Downsian model, where policy is determined by the median voter. This model predicts that as long as the median voter is not a car user, he wants high taxes on road use and a road capacity that maximizes net tax revenues. When he becomes a driver himself, he wants road user taxes that are lower and only increase to control congestion, as well as more road capacity. We then use panel data for 28 countries and find support for our theory. When the median voter becomes a driver, the gasoline tax drops on average by 20%. |
| Keywords: | gasoline taxes, median voter theory, political economy |
| JEL: | H23 R48 Q48 L98 Q52 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces10.01&r=cdm |
| By: | Michel Le Breton (Universit de Toulouse 1, GREMAQ and IDEI, Toulouse, France); Juan D. Moreno-Ternero (U. de Mlaga, U. Pablo de Olavide y CORE, Universit catholique de Louvain); Alexei Savvateev (New Economic School, Moscow, Russia); Shlomo Weber (Southern Methodist University, USA, and the New Economic School, Moscow, Russia) |
| Abstract: | This article studies a model of coalition formation for the joint production (and finance) of public projects, in which agents may belong to multiple coalitions. We show that, if projects are divisible, there always exists a stable (secession-proof) structure, i.e., a structure in which no coalition would reject a proposed arrangement. When projects are indivisible, stable allocations may fail to exist and, for those cases, we resort to the least core in order to estimate the degree of instability. We also examine the compatibility of stability and fairness in metric environments with indivisible projects, where we also explore the performance of well-known solutions, such as the Shapley value and the nucleolus. |
| Keywords: | Stability, Fairness, Membership, Coalition Formation |
| JEL: | C71 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:10.16&r=cdm |