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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2012‒05‒02
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Anderson, Simon P; Meagher, Kieron J |
| Abstract: | We introduce endogenous political parties into the Hotelling-Downs voting framework to model the selection of candidates. First, activists choose which party to join, if at all. Second, party members select a champion for the general election. Third, the electorate median voter determines the (stochastic) general election outcome. Although party members trade off win probabilities candidate location preferences, in equilibrium they vote sincerely, so champions are at party medians. Minimum differentiation is only attained when valence uncertainty vanishes. Otherwise, the electorate median voter is in neither party. Despite asymmetric party and policy positions in equilibrium, electoral successes remain roughly equal. |
| Keywords: | activism; endogenous activism; political parties; spatial voting; valence |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8941&r=cdm |
| By: | John Regan (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence of ballot order effects in Irish General Elections, where candidates are listed in alphabetical order. Data relating to elections from 1977 to 2011 suggest the effect is significant in a statistical sense and in magnitude. The nature of the Irish electoral system sees voters cast preferences for candidates, and as a result a greater level of information regarding voters becomes available. Various fixed effects are added to control for constituencies, candidates and political parties. |
| Keywords: | Ballot order effects, Proportional Representation, Fixed Effects, Irish Elections, Maltese Elections |
| Date: | 2012–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201216&r=cdm |
| By: | E Bracco |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a theory of socially optimal districting in a legislative-election model with endogenous party platforms. We generalize the model of Coate and Knight (2007), allowing parties to strategically condition their platforms on the districting. The socially optimal districting re ects the ideological leaning of the population, so that parties internalize voters' preferences in their policy platforms. The optimal seat-vote curve is unbiased when voters are risk-neutral, and -contrary to previous findings-biased against the largest partisan group when voters are risk-averse. The model is then calibrated by an econometric analysis of the elections of U.S. State legislators during the 1990s. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:1713&r=cdm |
| By: | Ronny Freier; Christian Odendahl |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effect of political power on tax policies in municipal councils under a proportional election system. The main challenge in estimating the causal effect of parties on policy is to isolate the effect of power from underlying voter preferences and the selection effect of parties. We use an instrumental variable approach where close elections provide the exogenous variation in our variable of interest: voting power. Using data from German municipalities in the state of Bavaria, our estimation results suggest that power does matter. Somewhat surprisingly, the center-left party SPD is found to lower all three locally controlled taxes, whereas The Greens increase both property taxes considerably. These results remain robust across a range of specifications. What is more, the effect of the SPD is confirmed by a simple regression discontinuity estimation of mayors in these local governments. |
| Keywords: | local taxation, local election, municipality data instrumental variable approach |
| JEL: | H10 H11 H77 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1205&r=cdm |
| By: | Alexander Jung (European Central Bank); Gergely Kiss (Fitch Ratings) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to study preference heterogeneity in monetary policy committees of inflation-targeting (IT) countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the period 2005–2010. It employs (individual) voting records of the Monetary Council of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the central bank of Hungary) and of the Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland. Preference heterogeneity in committees is not directly observable. Therefore, we pursue an indirect measurement and conduct an econometric analysis based on (pooled) Taylor-type reaction functions estimated using real-time information on economic and financial indicators and voting records. Recent evidence for the monetary policy committees (MPCs) of advanced economies (see Besley et al., 2008; Jung, 2011) suggests that preference heterogeneity among its members is systematic. Unlike for monetary policy committees of advanced countries, the present paper finds preference heterogeneity to be random for both the members of the Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), and the members of the Monetary Council of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB). But, similar to the committees of advanced economies, the diversity of views on the inflation forecast is measurable in both committees. A separate cluster analysis shows that different preferences of MPC members may be attributable to their status (chairman, internal member, external member) and that members may also differ in their desired response to changes in the economic outlook. |
| Keywords: | central banking, monetary policy committee, inflation targeting, collective decision-making, voting, preferences, pooled regressions |
| JEL: | C23 D72 D83 E58 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnb:wpaper:2012/2&r=cdm |
| By: | Juan Carlos Carbajal (School of Economics, The University of Queensland); Andrew McLennan (School of Economics, The University of Queensland); Rabee Tourky (School of Economics, The University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | In a setting where agents have quasi-linear utilities over social alternatives and a transferable commodity, we consider three properties that a social choice function may possess: truthful implementation (in dominant strategies); monotonicity in differences; lexicographic affine maximization. We introduce the notion of a flexible domain of preferences that allows elevation of pairs and study which of these conditions implies which others when the domain is flexible. We provide a generalization of the theorem of Roberts (1979) in restricted valuation domains. Flexibility holds (and the theorem is not vacuous) if the domain of valuation profiles is restricted to the space of continuous functions defined on a topological space, or the space of piecewise linear functions defined on an affine space, or the space of smooth functions defined on a compact differentiable man- ifold. Our results can be applied in both public and private goods allocation settings, with finite or infinite alternative sets. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:459&r=cdm |