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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Philip J. Grossman; Catherine Eckel; Mana Komai; Wei Zhan |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses followers’ assessment of leaders’ effectiveness in a controlled laboratory environment with salient incentives. We employ a simple game setting to examine how leaders are evaluated for the successes and failures of their groups. Followers participate in a five-person, coordination game repeated for two sets of 10 periods. Followers play each set with a different fixed group. After period 10, a leader provides (scripted) guidance on how to play the game to maximize group earnings. The gender of the leader is the only variable factor. At the end of the twentieth period, followers vote to reward (at a cost to themselves) their leader. We find that, even though leaders are all providing the same guidance, followers are more likely to heed the advice of the male leaders, followers are less likely to ascribe group success to female leaders, and followers reward male leaders more generously than female leaders. There is a premium to being male. |
| Keywords: | Leadership, Gender, Coordination Game |
| JEL: | C92 J71 J16 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2016-38&r=cdm |
| By: | Johansson, Anders C. (Stockholm China Economic Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | Social media provides political actors, opinion makers, and the electorate with the opportunity to bypass traditional media and engage in direct exchange of political information. This article explores how political candidates in the 2014 legislative election in Indonesia used social media during their political campaign. Exploiting a unique hand-collected data set, the study sheds light on personal characteristics that have explanatory power for political candidates’ choice to engage over social media. It also provides insight into the content of politicians’ messages and drivers for different types of content. The findings suggest that social media is used by a relatively large percentage of politicians in Indonesia and that they use social media platforms such as Twitter to engage with their electorate on several topics related to their campaign during election periods. |
| Keywords: | Indonesia; Social media; Elections; Politics; Democratic process; Political process; Media industry |
| JEL: | D72 L82 |
| Date: | 2016–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hascer:2016-043&r=cdm |
| By: | Micael Castanheira De Moura; Laurent Bouton; A. Llorente-Saguer |
| Abstract: | We propose a theory-based experimental approach to compare the properties of approval voting (AV) with thoseof plurality. This comparison is motivated by the theoretical prediction that, in our aggregate uncertainty setup,AV should produce close to first-best outcomes,while pluralitywill not. The experiment shows, first, thatwelfaregains are substantial. Second, both aggregate and individual responses are in line with theoretical predictions,and thus with strategic voting. Finally, subjects' behavior under AV highlights the need to study equilibria inasymmetric strategies. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/242105&r=cdm |
| By: | Christian Bergholz (University of Kassel); Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is promoted as a way in which small, fiscally weak municipalities can cope with intensified interregional competition and demographic change. We provide first evidence on citizens’ support for IMC using survey data from rural Germany. We cover different fields of public services and find the support for IMC to be lower for services where IMC implies intensified interaction with citizens from neighboring municipalities. The main research question asks whether citizens’ support for IMC is larger in municipalities that can – by the logic of normative theory – expect higher net benefits from IMC. The answer is largely negative: While support for IMC decreases in the travel-time to neighboring municipalities, we do not find the support for IMC to be higher among citizens in small and/or fiscally weak municipalities, nor do we find the available of suitable partners to matter. At the same time, citizens’ policy preferences strongly depends on individual-level factors. Believing that IMC reduces citizens’ influence and control reduces the support for IMC substantially. Trust in local politicians and a high degree of emotional attachment to the home municipality reduce citizens’ support for IMC. |
| Keywords: | fiscal federalism, inter-municipal cooperation, voter preferences, survey, Germany |
| JEL: | H77 D72 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201643&r=cdm |
| By: | Rothenhäusler, Dominik; Schweizer, Nikolaus; Szech, Nora |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how moral costs affect individual support of morally difficult group decisions. We study a threshold public good game with moral costs. Motivated by recent empirical findings, we assume that these costs are heterogeneous and consist of three parts. The first one is a standard cost term. The second, shared guilt, decreases in the number of supporters. The third hinges on the notion of being pivotal. We analyze equilibrium predictions, isolate the causal effects of guilt sharing, and compare results to standard utilitarian and non-consequentialist approaches. As interventions, we study information release, feedback, and fostering individual moral standards. |
| Keywords: | Moral Decision Making,Committee Decisions,Diffusion of Responsibility,Shared Guilt,Being Pivotal,Division of Labor,Institutions and Morals |
| JEL: | D02 D03 D23 D63 D82 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:99&r=cdm |
| By: | Johansson, Anders C. (Stockholm China Economic Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | Does social media have the potential to influence the political process more in certain countries? How do political actors and citizens use social media to participate in the political process? This paper analyzes these questions in the context of contemporary Indonesia, a country with a young democracy and a vibrant emerging economy. First, the relationships between traditional and social media and politics are discussed. Then, the current situation in Indonesia’s traditional media industry and how it may have helped drive the popularity of social media in Indonesia is analyzed. Finally, the paper discusses social media in today’s Indonesia and provides examples of how political actors and citizens use social media in the political process. |
| Keywords: | Indonesia; Social media; Media; Politics; Democratic process; Political process; Media industry |
| JEL: | D72 L82 |
| Date: | 2016–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hascer:2016-042&r=cdm |
| By: | Jessica Leight (Williams College); Rohini Pande (Harvard University and NBER); Laura Ralston (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Though vote-buying is observed in a diverse set of polities worldwide, relatively little is known about the channels through which it affects subsequent governance outcomes. Using laboratory experiments conducted in the U.S. and Kenya, we show that vote-buying reduces voters' willingness to punish politicians and increases rent-seeking by the incumbent politician. Specifically, we collect data from 816 subjects engaged in a simple voting game in which voters can punish a politician who expropriates rents from a common treasury. Voters who receive "a payment in exchange for your vote" increase the maximum amount they will allow the politician to expropriate while still voting to reelect him. Politicians, in turn, expropriate more when vote-buying is introduced. We provide evidence that social preferences, particularly reciprocity, are an important channel for this response. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, vote buying, political economy |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2016-15&r=cdm |
| By: | Gaudeul, Alexia; Kaczmarek, Magdalena Claudia |
| Abstract: | Recent evidence suggests that default based nudges i.e. alterations in the decisional context, can have large effects on decision making and can be used as policy interventions to improve individual and public welfare. This paper presents the results of a controlled experiment (N = 988), designed to evaluate not only the effectiveness of a default manipulation on decision making, but also to explore how yielding or opposing a nudge intervention later affects attitudes (towards the nudge and the nudger) and behavior in a charity giving context. The results show that while the default nudge was effective at the time of application, it was not enough to change attitudes towards the nudged behavior as would be needed for long-term success. Indeed, we rather find that those who adopted an action that went against the nudge were more motivated to follow on through with this action later on than those who went with the nudge. We furthermore show that giving people more leeway in how to respond to a nudge improves acceptance of the nudge. We finally discuss the practical implications of our findings in terms of the applicability of default-based nudges as a tool for policy interventions. |
| Keywords: | nudging,defaults,decision making,prosocial behavior,charity giving,behavioral economics |
| JEL: | C9 D04 D12 D64 H41 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:297&r=cdm |
| By: | Panagiotis Th. Konstantinou (Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece); Theodore Panagiotidis (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, Greece; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy); Costas Roumanias (Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece) |
| Abstract: | In an simple model of voter participation, the effects of election margin and campaign expenditure are shown to be state-dependent – varying with low/high turnout. We empirically assess these implications for observed turnout, employing data from US House elections from 2000 to 2008 by means of quantile regression analysis. We document that the effects of expected election margin and campaign spending on turnout are state-dependent: the later is positive and decreasing, whereas the former is negative and U-shaped. Other determinants' influence on turnout (e.g. education, population density) is also shown to vary across the conditional distribution of turnout rate. |
| Keywords: | Voter Turnout, Election Margin, Campaign Expenditure, Quantile Regression |
| JEL: | C21 D72 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:16-29&r=cdm |
| By: | Dinda, Soumyananda |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the relationship between social choice and fiscal performance in India since 1991. Social choice is simple measurement in public affair activities like participating in election. Vote turnover in a democracy is taken to measure trust on institution. Social trust is considered as a proxy of social capital. Truly, the percentage vote turnover is the measurement of the level of citizens’ chance to express their preferences, which certainly help to increase governmental responsibility and accountability and thereby government performance. Here, the government is forced to be responsive to citizens’ preferences and the underlying social contract rule, which leads to a higher level of fiscal discipline. Using principal component analysis we construct social capital index that captures both structural and cultural aspects. Fiscal institution in India becomes weak in the post reform era. Group of politicians are much more interest about their local or regional issues than national issues even they are not interested to formulate regional development policy through discussion in the Parliament of India. Here higher value of social index indicates higher level of social trust as proxy of higher social capital. High social capital inversely affects the fiscal performance. |
| Keywords: | Social Preference, Trust, Social Capital, Vote Turnover, Institution, Performance of Government, Fiscal Performance |
| JEL: | D7 H0 H3 O1 O2 Z1 Z18 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75828&r=cdm |