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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2012‒05‒08
thirteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Spenkuch, Jörg L. |
| Abstract: | Whether individuals vote strategically is one of the most important questions at the intersection of economics and political science. Exploiting a flaw in the German electoral system by which a party may gain seats by receiving fewer votes, this paper documents patterns of strategic voting in a large, real world election. During the 2005 elections to the Bundestag, the sudden death of a right-wing candidate necessitated a by-election in one electoral district. Knowing the results in all other districts and aware of the paradoxical incentives in place, a substantial fraction of the electorate reacted tactically and either voted for a party other than their most preferred one, or abstained. As a result, the Christian Democratic Union won an additional mandate, extending its narrow lead over the Social Democrats. |
| Keywords: | voting; strategic voting; manipulation of elections |
| JEL: | D7 D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38416&r=cdm |
| By: | Casey, Katherine (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how the quality of information available to voters influences the choices they make in the polling booth and in turn affects the strategies of political parties competing for their support. To do so, the paper builds a model of redistributive politics under asymmetric information and then tests the resulting propositions with data from recent elections in Sierra Leone. Using the Lindbeck and Weibull (1987) model as a foundation, I incorporate a new determinant of voting choice--candidate quality--which is only imperfectly observed by voters. I show that voters with better information about candidates are more likely to cross ethnic party lines to support a high quality candidate. Furthermore, since information encourages voters to consider characteristics like candidate charisma that are difficult for parties to observe, it makes party forecasting of expected vote shares more uncertain. Such electoral uncertainty in turn induces parties to spread their resources more evenly across jurisdictions. Two institutional attributes of the empirical setting--ethnicity-based politics and decentralization--enable direct tests of these informational propositions as well as a novel identification strategy for the classic swing voter hypothesis. My results suggest that information could break the low accountability equilibrium in which citizens cast their votes blindly along partisan lines, creating little incentive for political parties to invest in candidate quality or provide resources to areas outside the most tightly contested jurisdictions. |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:2099&r=cdm |
| By: | Schipper, Burkhard C. (University CA, Davis); Woo, Hee Yeul (University CA, Davis) |
| Abstract: | In modern elections, ideologically motivated candidates with a wealth of information about individual voters and sophisticated campaign strategies are faced by voters who lack awareness of some political issues and are uncertain about the exact political positions of candidates. This is the context in which we analyze electoral competition between two ideologically fixed candidates and a finite set of voters. Each political issue corresponds to a dimension of a multidimensional policy space in which candidates' and voters' most preferred policy points are located. Candidates can target messages to subsets of voters. A candidate's message consists of a subset of issues and some information on her political position in the subspace spanned by this subset of issues. The information provided can be vague, it can be even silent on some issues, but candidates are not allowed to bluntly lie about their ideology. Every voter votes for the candidate she expects to be closest to her but takes into account only the subspace spanned by the issues that come up during the campaign. We show that any prudent rationalizable election outcome is the same as if voters have full awareness of issues and complete information of policy points, both in parliamentary and presidential elections. We show by examples that these results depend on the strength of electoral competition, the ability to target information to voters, and the political reasoning abilities of voters. |
| JEL: | C72 D71 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:ucdeco:2012-04&r=cdm |
| By: | Le Breton, Michel (TSE); Montero, Maria; Zaporozhets, Vera (TSE) |
| Abstract: | We analyze and evaluate the di¤erent decision rules describing the Council of Ministers of the EU starting from 1958 up to now. Most of the existing studies use the Banzhaf index (for binary voting) or the Shapley-Shubik index (for distributive politics). We argue in favor of the nucleolus as a power measure in distributive situations and an alternative to the Shapley-Shubik index. We then calculate the nucleolus and compare the results of our calculations with the conventional measures. In the second part, we analyze the power of the European citizens as measured by the nucleolus under the egalitarian criterion proposed by Felsenthal and Machover (1998), and characterize the first best situation. Based on these results we propose a methodology for the de sign of the optimal (fair) decision rules. We perform the optimization exercise for the earlier stages of the EU within a restricted domain of voting rules, and conclude that Germany should receive more than the other three large countries under the optimal voting rule. |
| JEL: | C71 C72 C78 D63 D72 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:25808&r=cdm |
| By: | Russo, Giuseppe; Salsano, Francesco |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of electoral systems on openness to immigration. According to the literature, in our model plurality systems induce a rent-seeking policymaker to get re-election through locally provided public goods rather than through transfers, whereas the opposite occurs under proportional representation. In both systems policymakers can use immigration to enlarge the tax base and retrieve increased rents after compensating the decisive majority. However, this mechanism is more effective when the increased tax base does not flow to non-voting immigrants through transfers. Therefore, plurality electoral systems generate more openness to immigration. We find support for this result on a cross-section of 34 OECD countries. In addition, we show that mass immigration \ might incentivize policymakers to get re-election throug public goods rather than transfers also in proportional electoral systems. |
| Keywords: | electoral systems; rent extraction; immigration |
| JEL: | F22 H40 D78 D72 H00 |
| Date: | 2012–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:38497&r=cdm |
| By: | Boffa, F.; Piolatto, A.; Ponzetto, G.A.M. (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper studies fiscal federalism when voter information varies across regions. We develop a model of political agency with heterogeneously informed voters. Rentseeking politicians provide public goods to win the votes of the informed. As a result, rent extraction is lower in regions with higher information. In equilibrium, electoral discipline has decreasing returns. Thus, political centralization e¢ ciently reduces aggregate rent extraction. The model predicts that a region's benefits from centralization are decreasing in its residents' information. We test this prediction using panel data on pollutant emissions across U.S. states. The 1970 Clean Air Act centralized environ- mental policy at the federal level. In line with our theory, we find that centralization induced a differential decrease in pollution for uninformed relative to informed states. |
| Keywords: | Political centralization;Government accountability;Imperfect information;Interregional heterogeneity;Elections;Environmental policy;Air pollution . |
| JEL: | D72 D82 H73 H77 Q58 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2012033&r=cdm |
| By: | Le Breton, Michel; Sudhölter, Peter; Zaporozhets, Vera |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium of a sequential game-theoretical model of lobbying, due to Groseclose and Snyder (1996), describing a legislature that vote over two alternatives, where two opposing lobbies compete by bidding for legislators?votes. In this model, the lobbyist moving ?rst su¤ers from a second mover advantage and will make an o¤er to a panel of legislators only if it deters any credible counter-reaction from his opponent, i.e., if he anticipates to win the battle. This paper departs from the existing literature in assuming that legislators care about the consequence of their votes rather than their votes per se. Our main focus is on the calculation of the smallest budget that the lobby moving ?rst needs to win the game and on the distribution of this budget across the legislators. We study the impact of the key parameters of the game on these two variables and show the connection of this problem with the combinatorics of sets and notions from cooperative game theory. |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:25805&r=cdm |
| By: | Blais, Andre (Université de Montréal); Laslier, Jean-François (Ecole Polytechnique); Sauger, Nicolas (Sciences Po Paris); Van Der Straeten, Karine (Toulouse School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes a way to measure mechanical and psychological effects of majority runoff versus plurality electoral systems in candidate elections. Building on a series of laboratory experiments, we evaluate these effects with respect to the probability of electing a Condorcet winner candidate. In our experiment, the runoff system very slightly favours the Condorcet winner candidate, but this total effect is small. We show that this is the case because the mechanical and psychological effects tend to cancel each other out. Compared to plurality, the mechanical effect of runoffs is to systematically advantage the Condorcet winner candidate, as usually assumed; but our study detects an opposite psychological effect, to the disadvantage of this candidate. |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:25769&r=cdm |
| By: | Blais, Andre (Université de Montréal); Laslier, Jean-François (Ecole Polytechnique); Sauger, Nicolas (Sciences Po Paris); Van Der Straeten, Karine (Toulouse School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes a way to measure mechanical and psychological effects of majority runoff versus plurality electoral systems in candidate elections. Building on a series of laboratory experiments, we evaluate these effects with respect to the probability of electing a Condorcet winner candidate. In our experiment, the runoff system very slightly favours the Condorcet winner candidate, but this total effect is small. We show that this is the case because the mechanical and psychological effects tend to cancel each other out. Compared to plurality, the mechanical effect of runoffs is to systematically advantage the Condorcet winner candidate, as usually assumed; but our study detects an opposite psychological effect, to the disadvantage of this candidate. |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:25770&r=cdm |
| By: | Migheli, Matteo; Ortona, Guido; Ponzano, Ferruccio |
| Abstract: | According to commonsense wisdom, under proportionality a small centrist party enjoys an excess of power with reference to its share of seats (or votes) due to the possibility of blackmailing the larger ones. This hypothesis has been challenged on a theoretical ground, with some empirical support. In this paper we use simulation to test its validity. Our results strongly provide evidence that the hypothesis is actually wrong. What occurs is a transfer of power from the peryphery of the political spectrum towards the center, buth the major gainers are the large centrist parties and not the small ones. |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uca:ucapdv:167&r=cdm |
| By: | Armstrong, Christopher S. (University PA); Gow, Ian D. (Harvard University); Larcker, David F. (Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of shareholder support for equity compensation plans on subsequent chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. Using cross-sectional regression, instrumental variable, and regression discontinuity research designs, we find little evidence that either lower shareholder voting support for, or outright rejection of, proposed equity compensation plans leads to decreases in the level or composition of future CEO incentive-compensation. We also find that in cases where the equity compensation plan is rejected by shareholders, firms are more likely to propose, and shareholders are more likely to approve, a plan the following year. Our results suggest that shareholder votes have little substantive impact on firms' incentive-compensation policies. Thus, recent regulatory efforts aimed at strengthening shareholder voting rights, particularly in the context of executive compensation, may have limited effect on firms' compensation policies. |
| JEL: | G30 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:2097&r=cdm |
| By: | Michel Grabisch (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne); Yukihiko Funaki (School of political science and economics, Waseda University - Waseda University) |
| Abstract: | The coalition formation problem in an economy with externalities can be adequately modeled by using games in partition function form (PFF games), proposed by Thrall and Lucas. If we suppose that forming the grand coalition generates the largest total surplus, a central question is how to allocate the worth of the grand coalition to each player, i.e., how to find an adequate solution concept, taking into account the whole process of coalition formation. We propose in this paper the original concepts of scenario-value, process-value and coalition formation value, which represent the average contribution of players in a scenario (a particular sequence of coalitions within a given coalition formation process), in a process (a sequence of partitions of the society), and in the whole (all processes being taken into account), respectively. We give also two axiomatizations of our coalition formation value. |
| Keywords: | game theory; coalition formation; games in partition function form; Shapley value |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00690696&r=cdm |
| By: | Hammitt, James; Zhang, Yifan |
| Abstract: | Expert judgment (or expert elicitation) is a formal process for eliciting judgments from subject-matter experts about the value of a decision-relevant quantity. Judgments in the form of subjective probability distributions are obtained from several experts, raising the question how best to combine information from multiple experts. A number of algorithmic approaches have been proposed, of which the most commonly employed is the equal-weight combination (the average of the experts’ distributions). We evaluate the properties of five combination methods (equal-weight, best-expert, performance, frequentist, and copula) using simulated expert-judgment data for which we know the process generating the experts’ distributions. We examine cases in which two well-calibrated experts are of equal or unequal quality and their judgments are independent, positively or negatively dependent. In this setting, the copula, frequentist, and best-expert approaches perform better and the equal-weight combination method performs worse than the alternative approaches. |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:25761&r=cdm |