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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Simona Fabrizi (Department of Economics, University of Auckland, New Zealand); Steffen Lippert (Department of Economics, University of Auckland, New Zealand); Addison Pan (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, P. R. China); Matthew Ryan (School of Economics, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, AUT University) |
| Abstract: | Ellis (2016) introduced a variant of the classic (jury) voting game in which voters have ambiguous prior beliefs. He focussed on voting under majority rule and the implications of ambiguity for Condorcet’s Theorem. Ryan (2021) studied Ellis’s game when voting takes place under the unanimity rule. His focus was on the implications of ambiguity for the “jury paradox” (Feddersen and Pesendorfer, 1998). Neither paper described all equilibria of these games, though both authors identified equilibria with a very different structure to those in the respective games without ambiguity. We complete the description of all equilibria of voting games under the unanimity rule. In particular, we identify equilibria having the same form as those in Feddersen and Pesendorfer (1998), as well as equilibria with a “dual” form. |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aut:wpaper:202107&r= |
| By: | Bengtsson, Erik (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | In the mid-twentieth century, Sweden distinguished itself as one of the most organized and participatory democracies in the world, with high levels of voting turnout and party membership. But in the late nineteenth century the situation was much the opposite – Sweden had for Western Europe a low degree of suffrage, and low political participation. To explain the turnaround, this paper explores extra-parliamentary political activity in the period of the very exclusive two-chamber system of 1866. The contribution of the paper is to explore and describe the evolution of political meetings in Sweden in the final third of the nineteenth century and in this way provide an analysis of the evolution of a democratic political culture, which widened the scope of those who could act and participate politically. The empirical material consists of digitalized newspapers from the south of Sweden in the period 1866 to 1900, studying about 2,700 articles that mention “popular meetings”, folkmöten, which was the contemporary description of political meetings. The findings highlight the existence of a farmer-centred democratic critique in the 1860s and 1870s, which combined proposals for widened suffrage locally and nationally with criticisms of banks and the bureaucracy. In the1880s and 1890s, the social base of the folkmöten widened as urban workers – socialist and anti-socialist – took a greater part, and the ideological composition of the meetings became more heterogeneous. The systematic investigation of newspaper coverage shows that folkmöten were numerous and involved large numbers of people. This indicates that the Swedish population was more politically active than one would infer from looking at the electoral participation, which captures only the activity of the enfranchised, a minority of the population. The folkmöten was a major arena for democratic socialization in a country with an oligarchical political system. |
| Keywords: | democratization; Sweden; democracy; political history; political participation |
| JEL: | N13 N43 N93 |
| Date: | 2021–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0226&r= |
| By: | Sarah Cohodes; James J. Feigenbaum |
| Abstract: | In the United States, people with more education vote more. But, we know little about why education increases political participation or whether higher-quality education increases civic participation. We study applicants to Boston charter schools, using school lotteries to estimate charter attendance impacts for academic and voting outcomes. First, we confirm large academic gains for students in the sample of charter schools and cohorts investigated here. Second, we find that charter attendance boosts voter participation. Voting in the first presidential election after a student turns 18 increased substantially, by six percentage points from a base of 35 percent. The voting effect is driven entirely by girls and there is no increase in voter registration. Rich data and the differential effects by gender enable exploration of multiple potential channels for the voting impact. We find evidence consistent with two mechanisms: charter schools increase voting by increasing students’ noncognitive skills and by politicizing families who participate in charter school education. |
| JEL: | D72 H75 I21 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29308&r= |
| By: | Ken Ochieng' Opalo |
| Abstract: | Why does clientelism persist? What determines how politicians signal responsiveness or fulfil their campaign promises? Existing works assume that politicians choose the most successful means of winning votes—either through targeted patronage/clientelism or programmatic policies. However, the empirical record shows high levels of persistence of the nature of the relationship between voters and politicians. Both politicians and voters are not always able to unilaterally change what campaign promises are achievable and therefore deemed credible. |
| Keywords: | Politics, Kenya, Clientelism, Politician, Voting behaviour, Reforms |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-147&r= |
| By: | Germeshausen, Robert; Heim, Sven; Wagner, Ulrich J. |
| Abstract: | Successful decarbonization of the electricity sector hinges on the support of the public, which is at risk when electricity generation emits local externalities. This paper estimates the impact of wind turbine deployment on granular measures of revealed preferences for renewable electricity in product and political markets. We address endogenous siting of turbines with a novel IV approach that exploits quasi-experimental variation in profitability. We find that nearby wind turbines significantly reduce citizens' support, but this effect quickly fades with distance from the site. Our results shed light on how distance requirements and financial participation could enhance support for renewables. |
| Keywords: | Renewable energy,Wind power,Public support,Elections,Externalities |
| JEL: | D12 D72 Q42 Q50 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:21074&r= |