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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2011‒08‒09
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Fabrice Barthelemy; Mathieu Martin; Bertrand Tchantcho (THEMA, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise; THEMA, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise; University of Yaounde I, Ecole Normale Superieure, Cameroon, PO Box 47 Yaounde) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to present a structural specification of the Shapley- Shubik and Banzhaf power indices in a weighted voting rule. We compare them in term of the cardinality of the sets of power vectors (PV). This is done in different situations where the quota or the number of seats are fixed or not. |
| Keywords: | Shapley-Shubik, Banzhaf, power index, power vectors. |
| JEL: | C7 D7 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2011-14&r=cdm |
| By: | Riccardo Puglisi; James M. Snyder, Jr. |
| Abstract: | We propose a new method for measuring the relative ideological positions of newspapers, voters, interest groups, and political parties. The method uses data on ballot propositions. We exploit the fact that newspapers, parties, and interest groups take positions on these propositions, and the fact that citizens ultimately vote on them. We find that, on average, newspapers in the U.S. are located almost exactly at the median voter in their states. Newspapers also tend to be centrist relative to interest groups. |
| JEL: | D72 L82 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17263&r=cdm |
| By: | Paolo Pinotti (Banca d'Italia); Riccardo Settimo (Banca d'Italia) |
| Abstract: | We use data for 143 developing countries during the period 1980-2004 to study empirically the relationship between multilateral aid (as proxied by IDA flows) and support for US foreign policy, as measured by voting alignment at the United Nations General Assembly. Our identifica¬tion strategy exploits exogenous variations in international commodity prices and natural disasters to address causality from aid to voting. Our results suggest that, even though multilateral and bilateral aid flows are both associated with greater voting alignment, the causal effect of multilateral aid is not significantly different from zero. This result is robust to controlling for other determinants of voting patterns, for unobserved heterogeneity at the country level and for common time trends. |
| Keywords: | foreign aid, UN Assembly, voting, international financial institutions |
| JEL: | F35 O10 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_101_11&r=cdm |
| By: | Levent Celik; Bilgehan Karabay; John McLaren |
| Abstract: | In democracies, trade policy is the result of interactions among many agents with different agendas. In accordance with this observation, we construct a dynamic model of legislative trade policy-making in the realm of distributive politics. An economy consists of different sectors, each of which is concentrated in one or more electoral districts. Each district is represented by a legislator in the Congress. Legislative process is modeled as a multilateral sequential bargaining game a la Baron and Ferejohn (1989). Some surprising results emerge: bargaining can be welfare-worsening for all participants; legislators may vote for bills that make their constituents worse off; identical industries will receive very different levels of tariff. The results pose a challenge to empirical work, since equilibrium trade policy is a function not only of economic fundamentals but also of political variables at the time of congressional negotiations – some of them random realizations of mixed bargaining strategies. |
| JEL: | C72 C78 D72 F13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17262&r=cdm |
| By: | Leandro M. de Magalhães |
| Abstract: | With a regression discontinuity design I show that the partisan identity of the majority in the state House of Representatives has no causal effect on the tax level. This result goes against recent findings in the political economy literature. In the state Senate I find a significant discontinuity in the tax level, but I also find a discontinuity in the density of the forcing variable - which implies that we can not interpret the discontinuity in the Senate as a causal relation. Another contribution of the paper is to investigate under which conditions slim majorities in the American states (as opposed to close election) are appropriate for a regression discontinuity design. |
| Keywords: | Regression discontinuity design, Democrats, Republicans, divided government, line item veto, tax level. |
| JEL: | D72 H1 H2 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:11/622&r=cdm |
| By: | Fabrice Barthelemy; Mathieu Martin (THEMA, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise; THEMA, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we compare five well-known methods of apportionment, the ones by Adams, Dean, Hill, Webster and Jefferson. The criteria used for this comparison is the minimization of a distance between a power vector and a population vector. The power is measured with the well-known Banzhaf power index and the populations are the ones of the different States of the U.S. We first explain under which conditions this comparison makes sense. We then compare the apportionment methods in terms of their ability to bring closer the power of the States to their relative population. The U.S. presidential election by Electors is studied through 22 censuses since 1790. Our analysis is largely based on the book written by Balinski and Young (2001). The empirical findings are linked with theoretical results. |
| Keywords: | Banzhaf index, methods of apportionment, distances, balance population-power. |
| JEL: | C7 D7 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2011-13&r=cdm |
| By: | Bernard Monjardet (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne et CAMS-EHESS) |
| Abstract: | One year after the publication of Arrow's 1951 book Social Choice and Individual Values, Guilbaud (1912-2006) published in Économie Appliquée a 50 page's paper entitled Les théories de l'intérêt général et le problème logique de l'agrégation. In this paper -unfortunately too little known- first he dragged from a deep oblivion Condorcet's Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix and showed its interest. Then, he brought significant contributions doing of him a precursor of several futher developments of social choice theory. I present here these contributions and how they have been precursory. |
| Keywords: | Acyclic domain, Arrow's theorem, distributive lattice, judgment aggregation, simple game, social choice, ultrafilter. |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:11047&r=cdm |