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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | BEN-YASHAR, Ruth; KRAUSZ, Miriam; NITZAN, Shmuel |
| Abstract: | Students wish to increase the probability of being admitted to a prestigious school. Job candidates are interested in the probability of getting a desirable job. Defendants are concerned about the probability of being acquitted. In all such binary settings, the probability of the desirable outcome to individuals can be affected by their reputation. Applying a standard uncertain dichotomous choice benchmark setting, we focus on how the nature of the applied decision-making rule affects the individuals' incentive to invest in improvement of their reputation. Our main results establish that a democratic (non - democratic) decision-making system based on the simple majority (unanimity) rule ensures maximal (minimal) marginal productivity of reputation that increases (decreases) with the size of the decision-making committee. |
| Keywords: | decision making structure, investment in reputation |
| JEL: | D7 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hiasdp:hias-e-59&r=cdm |
| By: | Riccardo Pelizzo (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan); Zim Nwokora (Deakin University, Australia) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to explore in greater detail the nexus between party system change and democratic qualities. In doing so, we do not simply assess whether, how and to what extent qualities of democracy in East Africa are affected by the instability of the patterns of inter-party competition (fluidity of the party system), but we also plan to show how the sub-components of party system fluidity (frequency of change, scope of change, variety of change) influence the democratic qualities. By disaggregating fluidity in its constitutive elements and by testing how each of them affects the qualities of democracy, we find that while the frequency of change has a beneficial impact on the qualities of democracy, the other sub-components of fluidity—namely, the “scope” and “variety” of system change—have a consistently negative effect on democratic quality. |
| Keywords: | party system change, East Africa, South East Asia, fluidity, democracy |
| JEL: | D02 D72 H00 H11 H89 O00 O10 O43 O55 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:17/051&r=cdm |
| By: | Sven Christens (University of Kassel); Astrid Dannenberg (University of Kassel); Florian Sachs (University of Magdeburg) |
| Abstract: | Revealing the identities of contributors has been shown to increase cooperation in public goods games. In this paper we experimentally investigate whether this finding holds true when decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. We distinguish between groups in which members can discuss face-to-face to reach a decision and groups in which members communicate via computer chat. The results confirm the positive effect of identification on cooperation among individuals. For groups, however, we only find a small and temporary effect of identification, irrespective of the type of communication. The reason for this is that the sensitivity to others’ opinions plays an important role for individual decisions but not for group decisions. |
| Keywords: | Climate change; public goods experiment; cooperation; group decisions; face-to-face communication; computer chat communication; identification; shame |
| JEL: | C72 C91 C92 H41 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201755&r=cdm |
| By: | Alexander Hijzen; Pedro S. Martins; Jante Parlevliet |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of sector-level bargaining systems and their role for labour market performance. We compare two countries with seemingly similar collective bargaining systems, the Netherlands and Portugal, and document a number of features that may affect labour market outcomes, including: i) the scope for flexibility at the firm or worker level within sector-level agreements; ii) the emphasis on representativeness as a criterion for extensions; iii) the effectiveness of coordination across bargaining units; and iv) pro-active government policies to enhance trust and cooperation between the social partners. JEL codes: J5, P52 |
| Keywords: | industrial relations, social dialogue, employment |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp618&r=cdm |
| By: | Andrea Morone; Francesco Nemore; Tiziana Temerario |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigated group size impact on risk aversion when a majority rule is applied. Drawing on the widely used Holt and Laury’s (2002) lottery pairs, we observed a risky shift for both individual and groups regardless of their size. However, groups choices are shown to be closer to the risk-neutrality prediction. More interestingly, whereas smaller groups attitudes can be safely approximated by individual choices, larger groups reveal a statistically different risk-loving attitude. This risky shift becomes more prominent as group size increases. |
| Keywords: | Preferences; Group; Risk Attitude; Majority Rule; Laboratory. |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D01 |
| Date: | 2017–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eei:rpaper:eeri_rp_2017_12&r=cdm |
| By: | Persichina, Marco |
| Abstract: | This work shows that defective behaviors from the cooperative equilibrium in the management of common resources can be fueled and triggered by the presence of agents with myopic behaviors; a similar phenomenon is also possible with cooperative motivations. This paper demonstrates and discusses that the apparent and detectable decay of the cooperative choices in the dilemmas of common resources are not an exclusive and indisputable signal of an escalation in free-riding intentions, but can also be an outcome of the present-biased preferences and myopic behaviors of the cooperative agents. In fact, within the context populated by conditional cooperators with a heterogeneous myopic discount factor, in the absence of information about agents’ intentions, the present-biased preferences can trigger a strategy that directs the community to excessively increase its harvesting level, even in presence of the other-regarding motives. The behavior implemented by naïve agents, even if done with cooperative intent, can activate a dynamic of cascading defections from the cooperative strategy within the harvester group. Therefore, a lowering of the cooperative behaviors can also be the effect of the absence of coordination instruments in response to the cognitive bias that influences human behaviors. |
| Keywords: | Present bias, Commons, Cooperation, Cascading Defections, Naïve Agent. |
| JEL: | C71 C73 D03 D90 Q20 Q29 |
| Date: | 2016–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:83131&r=cdm |
| By: | Pietro Guarnieri |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses Searle's description of institutions in terms of deontological constitutive rules and collective recognition. It aims at integrating Searlian conception of commitment with an epistemology of rule-following capable to illustrate processes of formation of institutions. Social ontology per se cannot account for the formation of constitutive rules. Actually, it requires taking as given the object of collective recognition, i.e. the specific content of status functions. The hypothesis of interactive intentionality is introduced to account for the commitment to status functions as the result of an interactive decision-making process concerning alternative constitutive definitions. This interactive process, by acting on the normative interpretation of decision contexts, frames relevance and salience criteria and grounds the formation of institutions. Interactive intentionality hypothesis offers the opportunity to make social-ontological approach based on commitment theoretically commensurable with social-scientific approach based on equilibria and self-enforcement. |
| Keywords: | institutions, rule-following, conflict, formation |
| JEL: | B15 B31 B40 |
| Date: | 2017–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/227&r=cdm |
| By: | Sumit Joshi (George Washington University); Sudipta Sarangi (Virginia Tech); Ahmed Saber Mahmud (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | Economic agents are typically connected to others in multiple network relationships, and the archi- tecture of one network could be shaped by connections in other networks. This paper examines the formation of one network when connections in a second network are inherited under two scenarios: (i) the inherited network is asymmetric allowing for a wide range of graphs called nested split graphs, and (ii) the inherited network is a symmetric type of network belonging to a subclass of regular graphs. Both the inherited and endogenously formed networks are interdependent because the respective actions in each are (weak) strategic complements. This property is su¢ cient to show that those who inherit high centrality will continue to have high centrality. Additionally, the network formed by the agents induces a coarser partition than the inherited network, suggesting the possibility of being able to improve network centrality, but only in a limited manner. Thus, our analysis explains preferential attachment and why inequality is often entrenched in society, how asymmetries in one network may be magniÖed or diminished in another, and what determines the identity of players occupying the various vertices of asymmetric equilibrium networks. |
| Keywords: | Network formation, multigraphs, strategic complementarities, Katz-Bonacich centrality, nested split graphs |
| JEL: | C72 D85 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2017-27&r=cdm |
| By: | Angelos Chryssogelos |
| Abstract: | This working paper examines tendencies in Greek foreign policy during the Eurozone crisis. Existing analyses of the impact of the crisis on Greek foreign policy have focused primarily on its fiscal/economic effects. Here I shift the focus to the question whether the Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy has been affected by the crisis. Given that the EU has been the main strategic anchor of Greek foreign policy since the late-1990s, and that the Eurozone crisis put into question the overall alignment of Greece with Europe, the question of foreign policy Europeanization under conditions of a major crisis of EU governance remains surprisingly understudied. Apart from the mainstream foreign policy Europeanization literature, I also draw on critical works that view Europeanization as a process that de-politicizes state-society relations in Europe and insulates policymakers from public scrutiny. In this framework, I conceptualize the Eurozone crisis as a factor of re-politicization, opening policymaking (incl. in foreign policy) to contestation by mobilized political communities. I apply this conceptualization to the study of Greece’s Balkan and energy security policy between 2010 and 2015. The findings point to contradictory effects of the crisis on Greek foreign policy. Pro-EU governments in this period largely maintained the EU framework as their reference, but sought to project more forcefully national interests within it to demonstrate the usefulness of the EU for Greek goals and deflect public pressure. An anti-austerity coalition that came to power in early 2015 sought more forcefully to re-politicize some aspects of Greek foreign policy as part of its efforts to ‘renegotiate’ Greece’s relationship with the Eurozone. At the same time however, the overall image of Europeanized Greek foreign policy remained largely unaltered under the Syriza-ANEL coalition, and continuity was even more emphatic after it signed a new bailout agreement with the EU in the summer of 2015. The overall image then is one of continuity that however emerged out of a period of contestation that revealed deep tensions in what had always been an imperfect and instrumental embedding of Greek foreign policy in the EU framework. A de-Europeanization and re-politicization effect in 2010-15 crisis gave place to a renewed foreign policy practice within the EU framework, one however that is even more transparently than during the pre-crisis era the outcome of instrumental and national interest calculations. Europe remains the most effective and most readily available tool of Greek foreign policy, albeit one burdened with even more contradictions than in the past. |
| Keywords: | Greek foreign policy; Europeanization; state transformation; politicization; Balkans; energy |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hel:greese:118&r=cdm |
| By: | NESE, Annamaria (CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno - Italy); TROISI, Roberta (CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno - Italy) |
| Abstract: | This analysis addresses the corruption of Italian mayors, and it is carried out by analyzing the sentences of the Italian Supreme Court in the last decade. The research questions are as follows: Is corruption effectively prosecuted and punished in Italy? Are there signs of social stigma or reputational damage for corrupt politicians? To this aim, we focus on i) justice efficiency and ii) social tolerance of corruption. The results reported here reveal that the probability of re-election increases in small urban areas, when the mayor is a strong leader and when he colludes with entrepreneurs external to the council, thus reinforcing the hypotheses that people vote for corrupt leaders because they receive favors from those leaders or because they perceive that those leaders are efficient in delivering public goods. The judicial system works well against organized crime, probably because of the special proceedings against "mafiosi"; however, it is more inefficient when a mayor colludes with his staff: evidently, higher efficiency may be pursued through the implementation of a stricter legal institutional framework. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Public management |
| JEL: | C35 D02 D23 I38 |
| Date: | 2017–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sal:celpdp:0145&r=cdm |
| By: | Catia Batista; Julia Seither; Pedro C. Vicente |
| Abstract: | What is the role of international migrants and, more specifically, of migrant networks in shaping the quality of political institutions in migrant sending countries? Our theory proposes that migration might change individual social identities and in this way intrinsic motivation for political participation, while it may also improve knowledge about better quality political institutions. Hence, international migration might increase political awareness and participation both by migrants and by other individuals in their networks. To test this hypothesis, this paper uses several survey and behavioral measures related to political participation and electoral knowledge. These data were purposely collected around the time of the 2009 elections in Mozambique. The empirical results show that the number of migrants an individual is in close contact through regular chatting within a village significantly increase political participation of residents in that village – more so than family links to migrants. Our findings are consistent with both improved knowledge about political processes, and increased intrinsic motivation for political participation being transmitted through migrant networks. JEL codes: D72, F22, O15 |
| Keywords: | International migration, social networks, political participation, information, effects of emigration in origin countries, sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp1701&r=cdm |
| By: | Joshua C. Hall (West Virginia University, Department of Economics); Serkan Karadas (Sewanee, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In many states, public institutions of higher education have the autonomy to raise tuition. This has not been the case in Louisiana since a 1995 constitutional amendment required a two-thirds majority of the state legislature for any tuition increase. In November of 2016, voters in Louisiana rejected Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given state institutions of higher education autonomy in setting tuition. We examine parish-level voting on Amendment 2 using an empirical political economy model and find that parishes with a greater percentage of African-Americans and university employees were more likely to vote yes. Student enrollment at public institutions seemingly did not play a role in Amendment 2 losing. |
| Keywords: | Amendment 2, tuition increases |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wvu:wpaper:17-29&r=cdm |