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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2012‒07‒23
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel); Carolin Neuhaus (University of Bonn); Peter Trautner (University of Bonn); Bernd Weber (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Which motives drive the decision of a voter to approve or reject a policy proposal? The Public Choice literature distinguishes between instrumental and expressive voting motives. We investigate the importance of these motives by analysing the patterns of neural activity in different voting situations. We conduct an fMRI-experiment which investigates neural activation at the moment of voting and use the altruism scale proposed by Tankersley et al. (2007) to differentiate between altruists and non-altruists. Non-altruists show neural activation patterns that are consistent with expressive voting motives. Among non-altruists, we also find activation patterns that point at egoistic instrumental motives. Both results are in line with the corresponding Public Choice literature. On the other hand, we find no evidence for expressive voting motives among altruists. Their neural activation pattern is generally much less conclusive with respect to the underlying motives. |
| Keywords: | Voting behavior, expressive voting, instrumental voting, political decision making, charitable donation, neuroscience, neuroeconomics, neuropolitical, fMRI |
| JEL: | D72 D87 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201234&r=cdm |
| By: | Tuvana Pastine (Department of Economics Finance and Accounting, National University of Ireland, Maynooth); Ivan Pastine (Department of Economics,UCD, Dublin); Paul Redmond (Department of Economics Finance and Accounting, National University of Ireland, Maynooth) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a simple statistical exercise to provide a benchmark for the degree of electoral stagnation without direct officeholder benefits or challenger scare-off effects. Here electoral stagnation arises solely due to incumbent-quality advantage where the higher quality candidate wins the election. The simulation is calibrated using the observed drop-out rates in the U.S. Senate. From 1946 to 2010, the observed incumbent reelection rate is 81.7 percent; the benchmark with incumbent-quality advantage alone is able to generate a reelection rate of 78.2 percent. In the sub-sample from 1946 to 1978, the reelection rate from the simulation is almost identical to the observed. The rates diverge in the second part of the sub-sample from 1980 to 2010, possibly indicating an increase in electoral stagnation due to incumbency advantage arising for reasons other than incumbent-quality advantage. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:may:mayecw:n221-12.pdf&r=cdm |
| By: | Philipp an de Meulen; Christian Bredemeier |
| Abstract: | Preventive policy measures such as bailouts often pass parliament very narrowly. We present a model of asymmetric information between politicians and voters which rationalizes this narrow parliamentary outcome. A successful preventive policy impedes the verification of its own necessity. When policy intervention is necessary but voters disagree ex-ante, individual politicians have an incentive to loose the vote in parliament in order to be rewarded by voters ex-post. Comfortable vote margins induce incentives to move to the loosing fraction to avoid this winner’s curse. In equilibrium, parliamentary elections over preventive policies are thus likely to end at very narrow margins. |
| Keywords: | Political economy; asymmetric information |
| JEL: | D72 D82 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rwi:repape:0336&r=cdm |
| By: | Gersbach, Hans; Schneider, Maik |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts, a novel instrument, on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government and voters may behave strategically. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good provision and benefit from perks when in office. A government raises taxes for both purposes. We show that tax contracts yield moderate policies and lead to lower perks by avoiding the formation of grand coalitions in order to win government. Moreover, in polarized societies they unambiguously improve the welfare of the median voter. |
| Keywords: | elections; government formation; political contracts; tax promise |
| JEL: | D72 D82 H55 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9054&r=cdm |
| By: | Leopoldo Fergusson |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of mass media in countering special interest group influence. I use the concentration of campaign contributions from Political Action Committees to proxy special interests’ capture US Senate candidates from 1980 to 2002, and compare the reaction of voters to increases in concentration in two different types of media markets – in-state media markets and out-of-state media markets. Unlike in-state media markets, out-of-state markets focus on neighboring states’ politics and elections. Thus, if citizens punish political capture, increases in concentration of special interest contributions to a particular candidate should reduce his vote share in in-state counties relative to the out-of-state counties, where the candidate receives less coverage. I find that a one standard deviation increase in concentration of special interest contributions to incumbents reduces their vote share by about 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points in in-state counties relative to the out-of-state counties. Results are similar in specifications that rely solely on variation in concentration across time within the same county, and when the sample is limited to in-state counties that are contiguous to out-of-state counties and have similar demographic structures. A placebo test where in-state counties bordering out-of-state ones are compared to other in-state counties shows no effect, confirming the identification hypothesis that the results are not driven by geographic characteristics or distance from the media center of the state. |
| Date: | 2012–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:009796&r=cdm |
| By: | Julien Labonne |
| Abstract: | I develop and test two competing models assessing the impacts of targeted government transfers on a local incumbent’s electoral performance. I take advantage of the randomized roll-out of a large-scale Conditional Cash Transfer program in the Philippines, which offers an ideal setting to test the models. Although the program was usually implemented in all villages in a municipality, a subset of beneficiary municipalities were randomly selected to receive the program in a randomly selected subset of villages. I find that, in a competitive political environment, incumbent vote share is 26 percentage points higher in municipalities in which the program was implemented in all villages than in municipalities in which the program was implemented in half of the villages. The program had no impact in municipalities with low levels of political competition. Further, within municipalities, there is evidence consistent with the argument that incumbents compensated households in control villages by redistributing their own budget there. Results suggest that anti-poverty programs might have nefarious long-term consequences by preventing replacements of local incumbents. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Conditional cash transfers, Decentralization |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2012-09&r=cdm |
| By: | Graziella Bertocchi; Arcangelo Dimico |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the empirical relevance of de facto vs. de jure determinants of political power in the U.S. South between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. We apply a variety of estimation techniques to a previously unexploited dataset on voter registration by race covering the counties of Mississippi in 1896, shortly after the introduction of the 1890 voting restrictions encoded in the state constitution. Our results indicate that de jure voting restrictions reduce black registration but that black disfranchisement starts well before 1890 and is more intense where a black majority represents a threat to the de facto power of white elites. Moreover, the effect of race becomes stronger after 1890 suggesting that the de jure barriers may have served the purpose of institutionalizing a de facto condition of disfranchisement. |
| Keywords: | race, voting, institutions, education, inequality |
| JEL: | J15 N41 O43 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:084&r=cdm |
| By: | Martin Ardanaz; Marcelo Leiras; Mariano Tommasi |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms whereby they affect national-level politics and policymaking at the national level in Argentina, a highly decentralized middle-income democracy, Argentina. The Argentine political system makes subnational political power structures very influential in national politics. Moreover, most Argentine provinces are local bastions of power dominated by entrenched elites, characterized by scarce political competition, weak division of powers, and clientelistic political linkages. Political dominance in the provinces and political importance at the national level reinforce each other, dragging the Argentine political and policymaking system towards the practices and features of its most politically backward regions. |
| JEL: | D72 D73 D78 H11 H70 H77 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:4781&r=cdm |
| By: | Camille Bedock; Peter Mair and Alex Wilson |
| Abstract: | Recent decades have seen a wave of institutional changes of the core democratic rules in advanced democracies. These changes include reforms of electoral systems; decentralization of power to sub-national governments; the creation or enhancement of direct-democratic institutions; a rise in public subsidies to political parties; and shifts in the balance of power between executive and legislature. Nevertheless, political science has developed a limited understanding of what explains institutional change in democracies that are already consolidated. This is partly due to the lack of comparative data on the subject, with most studies of institutional change focusing on a single country, or on a single type of reform (e.g. electoral system change). Our paper seeks to bridge this gap by presenting the preliminary findings of an international research project that compared seven dimensions of institutional change in 18 consolidated European democracies between 1990 and 2008, producing a unique dataset whose content has been fully verified by national experts. This dataset provides the empirical basis for evaluating the type and extent of institutional change in consolidated European democracies, as well as developing hypotheses about the motivations and calculations behind these reforms. |
| Date: | 2012–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0310&r=cdm |