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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Jessen, Jonas (DIW Berlin); Kühnle, Daniel (University of Duisburg-Essen); Wagner, Markus (University of Vienna) |
| Abstract: | Does voting have downstream consequences for turnout and political preferences? While research initially showed strong support for the notion that the experience of voting fosters civic habits and political engagement, recent work has cast doubt on how universal these patterns are. We contribute to this debate by studying the short- and long-term impact of earlier voting eligibility on subsequent turnout and political preferences using rich panel data from the UK. Exploiting the eligibility cut-off for national elections within a regression discontinuity design, we document a short-run increase in party identification, political interest and democratic norms for those able to vote earlier. However, these short-term effects quickly fade away and do not translate into permanent changes in turnout propensity or political preferences. Our results imply that the transformative effects of voting are short-lived, at most, in a setting with low institutional barriers to vote. |
| Keywords: | voting, turnout, downstream effects, political preferences, habit, persistence, regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | D01 D70 D72 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14296&r= |
| By: | Joshua Becker; Douglas Guilbeault; Ned Smith |
| Abstract: | Decades of research suggest that information exchange in groups and organizations can reliably improve judgment accuracy in tasks such as financial forecasting, market research, and medical decision-making. However, we show that improving the accuracy of numeric estimates does not necessarily improve the accuracy of decisions. For binary choice judgments, also known as classification tasks--e.g. yes/no or build/buy decisions--social influence is most likely to grow the majority vote share, regardless of the accuracy of that opinion. As a result, initially inaccurate groups become increasingly inaccurate after information exchange even as they signal stronger support. We term this dynamic the "crowd classification problem." Using both a novel dataset as well as a reanalysis of three previous datasets, we study this process in two types of information exchange: (1) when people share votes only, and (2) when people form and exchange numeric estimates prior to voting. Surprisingly, when people exchange numeric estimates prior to voting, the binary choice vote can become less accurate even as the average numeric estimate becomes more accurate. Our findings recommend against voting as a form of decision-making when groups are optimizing for accuracy. For those cases where voting is required, we discuss strategies for managing communication to avoid the crowd classification problem. We close with a discussion of how our results contribute to a broader contingency theory of collective intelligence. |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2104.11300&r= |
| By: | Alexandros Karakostas; Martin G. Kocher; Dominik Matzat; Holger A. Rau; Gerhard Riewe |
| Abstract: | We analyze linear, weakest-link and best-shot public goods games in which a distinguished team member, the team allocator, has property rights over the benefits from the public good and can distribute them among team members. These team allocator games are intended to capture natural asymmetries in hierarchical teams facing social dilemmas, such as those that exist in work teams. Our results show that the introduction of a team allocator leads to pronounced cooperation in both linear and best-shot public-good games, while it has no effect in the weakest-link public good. The team allocator uses her allocation power to distribute benefits from the public good in a way that motivates people to contribute. Re-allocating team payoffs allows the team allocator to reward cooperating team members and to sanction non-cooperating members at no efficiency losses from explicit sanctioning costs. As a result, team profits are higher in the linear team allocator game but not in the best-shot case, where the lack of coordination leads to a welfare decrease for the remaining team members. |
| Keywords: | public goods provision, experiment, institutions, cooperation, allocation power, teams |
| JEL: | C72 C91 C92 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9023&r= |
| By: | Angelova, Vera (TU Berlin); Güth, Werner (MPI for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn); Kocher, Martin G. (University of Vienna) |
| Abstract: | We experimentally analyze leading by example in a public goods game with two permanent and two temporary group members. Our results show that leadership when permanent and temporary members interact leads to lower contributions than interaction without leadership. |
| Keywords: | cooperation; leadership; social dilemma; public goods provision; experiment; |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D64 |
| Date: | 2019–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:202&r= |
| By: | Fabian Scheller; Isabel Doser; Emily Schulte; Simon Johanning; Russell McKenna; Thomas Bruckner |
| Abstract: | Although there is a clear indication that stages of residential decision making are characterized by their own stakeholders, activities, and outcomes, many studies on residential low-carbon technology adoption only implicitly address stage-specific dynamics. This paper explores stakeholder influences on residential photovoltaic adoption from a procedural perspective, so-called stakeholder dynamics. The major objective is the understanding of underlying mechanisms to better exploit the potential for residential photovoltaic uptake. Four focus groups have been conducted in close collaboration with the independent institute for social science research SINUS Markt- und Sozialforschung in East Germany. By applying a qualitative content analysis, major influence dynamics within three decision stages are synthesized with the help of egocentric network maps from the perspective of residential decision-makers. Results indicate that actors closest in terms of emotional and spatial proximity such as members of the social network represent the major influence on residential PV decision-making throughout the stages. Furthermore, decision-makers with a higher level of knowledge are more likely to move on to the subsequent stage. A shift from passive exposure to proactive search takes place through the process, but this shift is less pronounced among risk-averse decision-makers who continuously request proactive influences. The discussions revealed largely unexploited potential regarding the stakeholders local utilities and local governments who are perceived as independent, trustworthy and credible stakeholders. Public stakeholders must fulfill their responsibility in achieving climate goals by advising, assisting, and financing services for low-carbon technology adoption at the local level. Supporting community initiatives through political frameworks appears to be another promising step. |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2104.14240&r= |
| By: | Gauthier Marchais; Christian M. Mugaruka; Raúl Sanchez de la Sierra; David Qihang Wu |
| Abstract: | We use variation in exposure to victimization of 1,537 households of eastern Congo for each year of 1990–2013 to examine the formation of preferences to participate in armed groups. In this context, most armed groups are Congolese militia, whose objective is fighting foreign armed groups. We find that foreign armed group attacks on household members are associated with a larger propensity that individuals join a Congolese militia in subsequent years. The results are consistent with the formation of preferences arising from parochial altruism towards the family to fight foreign perpetrators. Specifically, we find that the effect is driven by the most gruesome of those attacks, by those that take place at a young age, and persists for several years. Consistent with parochial altruism, we find that the effect is largest when the victim is a household member or the village chief, smaller when the victim is another household in the village, and insignificant if the victim is in a nearby village. To examine the external validity of our result, we analyze heterogeneous effects by weakness of the state. We find that the response is concentrated in village-year observations in which state forces are absent. Finally, we show that, to undo this effect, the yearly per capita income outside armed groups would have to permanently increase 18.2-fold. These results suggest that intrinsic preferences are important for armed group participation relative to economic incentives, and emphasize their interaction with state weakness. |
| JEL: | D15 D72 D74 Z13 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28714&r= |
| By: | Eugenio Levi; Isabelle Sin; Steven Stillman |
| Abstract: | We use electoral survey data to examine the impact that two large external shocks had on the development of New Zealand First (NZF), one of the oldest populist parties in the OECD. We find that structural reforms, which led to large negative impacts on particular locations, and immigration reforms, which led to large spatially concentrated increases in skilled migration, both increased voting for NZF in its first years of existence. These shocks led to changes in political attitudes and policy preferences and had persistent effects on voting for NZF even twenty years later. Overall, they play an important role in explaining the rise of populism in NZ. Understanding how these shocks led to the development of NZF is particularly relevant for thinking about how populism has been extending its reach in the 2010s. |
| Keywords: | populism, political parties, trade, immigration, shocks |
| JEL: | D72 P16 H40 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9036&r= |
| By: | Laurentsyeva, Nadzeya (LMU Munich) |
| Abstract: | This project studies collaboration in highly skilled, nationally diverse teams. An unexpected international political conflict makes national diversity more salient among existing and potential team members. I exploit this natural experiment to quantify the role of social, identity-driven, costs for performance and formation of diverse teams. Using microdata from GitHub, the world’s largest hosting platform for software projects, I estimate the causal impacts of a political conflict that burst out between Russia and Ukraine in 2014. I find that the conflict strongly reduced online cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian programmers. The conflict lowered the likelihood that Ukrainian and Russian programmers work in the same team and led to the performance decline of existing joint projects. I provide evidence that the observed effects were not driven by economic considerations. Rather, the conflict activated national identities and shifted programmers’ taste for teammates and projects. My results highlight the role of identity-driven concerns that can distort existing and prevent future collaborations, otherwise profitable from an economic perspective. |
| Keywords: | teams; diversity; conflict; national identity; open source; |
| JEL: | D22 D74 F23 F51 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:226&r= |