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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Finn Schmieter |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of timing in common-value elections. There are two voting periods where voters can decide for themselves when to publicly cast their votes after receiving private signals. In welfare-optimal equilibria, agents use their timing to communicate the strength of their private information to the other voters. This communication allows for better information aggregation than simultaneous voting or voting with exogenously fixed timing. In the case of a simple majority voting rule, a second voting period mitigates the Swing Voter’s Curse more effectively than abstention. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Pivotal Voting, Communication, Information |
| JEL: | D72 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2022_328&r= |
| By: | Kumar Sur, Pramod |
| Abstract: | Recent democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarian regimes around the world have rekindled interest in understanding the causes and consequences of authoritarian rule in democracies. In this paper, I study the long-run political consequences of authoritarianism in the context of India, the world’s largest democracy.Utilizing the unexpected timing of the authoritarian rule imposed in the 1970s and the variation in a draconian policy implemented during this period, I document a sharp decline in the share of the then incumbent party’s, the Indian National Congress, votes and the probability of its candidates winning in subsequent elections. The decline in the incumbent party’s political dominance was not at the expense of a lower voter turnout rate. Instead, a sharp rise in the number of opposition candidates contesting for election in subsequent years played an important role. Finally, I examine the enduring consequences, revealing that confidence in politicians remains low in states where the draconian policy was high. Together, the evidence suggests that authoritarianism in a democracy has a persistent effect on voting behavior, political representation, and confidence in institutions. |
| Keywords: | Democracy, authoritarianism, voting behavior, voter turnout, confidence in institutions, family planning, India, D72, N45, J13, P16 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000191&r= |
| By: | Alt, James E.; Jensen, Amalie; Larreguy, Horacio; Lassen, David D.; Marshall, John |
| Abstract: | While social pressure is widely believed to influence voters, evidence that informa-tion passed between social ties affects beliefs, policy preferences, and voting behav-ior is limited. We investigate whether information about unemployment shocks dif-fuses through networks of strong and mostly weak social ties and influences voters in Denmark. We link surveys with population-level administrative data that logs un-employment shocks afflicting respondents’ familial, vocational, and educational net-works. Our results show that the share of second-degree social ties—individuals that voters learn about indirectly—that became unemployed within the last year increases a voter’s perception of national unemployment, self-assessed risk of becoming unem-ployed, support for unemployment insurance, and voting for left-wing political parties. Voters’ beliefs about national aggregates respond to all shocks equally, whereas sub-jective perceptions and preferences respond primarily to unemployment shocks afflict-ing second-degree ties in similar vocations. This suggests that information diffusion through social ties principally affects political preferences via egotropic—rather than sociotropic—motives. |
| Date: | 2022–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:126516&r= |
| By: | Fergusson, Leopoldo; Larreguy, Horacio; Riano, Juan Felipe |
| Abstract: | We develop a model of the politics of state capacity building undertaken by incum-bent parties that have a comparative advantage in clientelism rather than in public goods provision. The model predicts that, when challenged by opponents, clientelistic incumbents have the incentive to prevent investments in state capacity. We provide empirical support for the model’s implications by studying policy decisions by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that affected local state capacity across Mex-ican municipalities and over time. Our difference-in-differences and instrumental variable identification strategies exploit a national shock that threatened the Mexican government’s hegemony in the early 1960s. The intensity of this shock, which varied across municipalities, was partly explained by severe droughts that occurred during the 1950s. |
| JEL: | D72 D73 Q15 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:126517&r= |
| By: | Thomas Ferguson (Institute for New Economic Thinking); Paul Jorgensen (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley); Jie Chen (University of Massachusetts, Boston) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the 2020 election, focusing on voters, not political money, and emphasizing the importance of economic geography. Drawing extensively on county election returns, it analyzes how spatial factors combined with industrial structures to shape the outcome. It treats COVID 19`s role at length. The paper reviews studies suggesting that COVID 19 did not matter much, but then sets out a new approach indicating it mattered a great deal. The study analyzes the impact on the vote not only of unemployment but differences in income and industry structures, along with demographic factors, including religion, ethnicity, and race. It also studies how the waves of wildcat strikes and social protests that punctuated 2020 affected the vote in specific areas. Trump`s very controversial trade policies and his little discussed farm policies receive detailed attention. The paper concludes with a look at how political money helped make the results of the Congressional election different from the Presidential race. It also highlights the continuing importance of private equity and energy sectors opposed to government action to reverse climate change as conservative forces in (especially) the Republican Party, together with agricultural interests. |
| Keywords: | political economy, voting, 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump, Populism, trade policy, farm policy, political money, Joe Biden, private equity |
| JEL: | D71 D72 G38 P16 N22 L51 |
| Date: | 2021–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp169&r= |
| By: | Marina Azzimonti; Nirvana Mitra |
| Abstract: | We study how political constraints, characterized by the degree of flexibility to choose fiscal policy, affect the probability of sovereign default. To that end, we relax the assumption that policymakers always repay their debt in the dynamic model of fiscal policy developed by Battaglini and Coate (2008). In our setup, legislators bargain over taxes, general spending, debt repayment, and a local public good that can be targeted to the region they represent. Under tighter political constraints, more legislators have veto power, implying that local public goods need to be provided to a larger number of regions. The resources that are freed after a default have to be shared with a higher number of individuals, which reduces the benefits from defaulting in per-capita terms. This lowers the incentive to default compared to the case with lax political constraints. The model is calibrated to Argentina and the results conform to robust empirical evidence. An event study for the 2001/2002 sovereign debt crisis shows that political constraints had an important role in the buildup that led to the crisis. |
| JEL: | D72 E43 E62 E65 F34 F41 F44 H2 H4 H63 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29667&r= |
| By: | Miaari, Sami H. (Tel Aviv University); Loewenthal, Amit (University of Potsdam); Adnan, Wifag (New York University, Abu Dhabi) |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between socio-economic characteristics and voting patterns among Arabs in Israel. We combine panel data on 73 Arab localities with election results and socio-economic indicators for seven election years between 1996 and 2015. Exploiting variation in political preferences and socio-economic status between localities across time, we find that both demographic transition and improvements in standards of living are associated with a decrease in the proportion of Israeli Arabs voting for Jewish-majority parties and a rise in their electoral support for Arab Parties. We also find that the decrease in voter turnout among Arabs following the political effects of the Second Intifada may have been only circumstantial. Our results suggest that Arabs in Israel are becoming more politically independent, as a result of social, political and economic modernization. |
| Keywords: | Israel, elections, Arabs, political economy |
| JEL: | D01 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14988&r= |
| By: | Angel Solano-Garcia (Department of Economic Theory and Economic History, University of Granada.) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of voters’ support for government intervention on the choice of policies that reduce income inequality. Using a Downsian two-party political competition framework in which voters differ in both income and ideology, I find that an increase in income inequality does not necessarily imply an increase in the tax rate chosen by majority voting. I only obtain this result, supported by the traditional models on redistributive politics (Romer, 1975, Roberts, 1977 and Meltzer and Richard, 1983), if the support for government intervention is alike for conservative and liberal voters. However if conservatives’ support for public spending is reduced, high-income inequality is compatible with a moderate tax rate. |
| Keywords: | : liberal, conservative, government intervention, Inequality. |
| JEL: | D72 D74 F22 |
| Date: | 2022–02–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gra:wpaper:22/04&r= |
| By: | Massoc, Elsa Clara |
| Abstract: | Are we in a new "Polanyian moment"? If we are, it is essential to examine how "spontaneous" and punctual expressions of discontent at the individual level may give rise to collective discourses driving social and political change. It is also important to examine whether and how the framing of these discourses may vary across political economies. This paper contributes to this endeavor with the analysis of anti-finance discourses on Twitter in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK between 2019 and 2020. This paper presents three main findings. First, the analysis shows that, more than ten years after the financial crisis, finance is still a strong catalyzer of political discontent. Second, it shows that there are important variations in the dominant framing of public anti-finance discourses on social media across European political economies. If the antagonistic "us versus them" is prominent in all the cases, the identification of who "us" and "them" are, vary significantly. Third, it shows that the presence of far-right tropes in the critique of finance varies greatly from virtually inexistent to a solid minority of statements. |
| Keywords: | finance,opinion,social media,discourse analysis |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:338&r= |
| By: | Pablo Amorós (Departamento de Teoría e Historia Económica, Universidad de Málaga.) |
| Abstract: | We consider the problem of a group of experts who have to rank a set of candidates. Society's optimal choice relies on experts?honest judgments about the deserving ranking. However, experts' judgments are impossible to verify. Moreover, experts' judgments do not entirely determine their preferences. Then, experts might want to misreport their judgments if, by doing so, some ranking that they like best is selected. To solve this problem, we have to design a mechanism where the experts interact so that the socially optimal ranking is implemented. Whether this is possible depends on (1) how experts' judgments are aggregated to determine the socially optimal ranking and (2) how experts' preferences relate to their judgments. We state necessary and su¢ cient conditions on these two elements for the socially optimal ranking to be implementable in dominant strategies and Nash equilibrium. Then, we study the implementability of some widely used judgment aggregation rules, including extensions of scoring and Condorcet consistent voting rules. Finally, we propose a non-trivial judgment aggregation rule that is Nash implementable. |
| Keywords: | Evaluation; impartiality; manipulability; ranking of candidates; mechanism design; voting rules. |
| JEL: | C72 D71 D78 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mal:wpaper:2022-1&r= |
| By: | Maxime Menuet (LEO - Laboratoire d'Économie d'Orleans - UO - Université d'Orléans - UT - Université de Tours); Hugo Oriola (LEO - Laboratoire d'Économie d'Orleans - UO - Université d'Orléans - UT - Université de Tours); Patrick Villieu (LEO - Laboratoire d'Économie d'Orleans - UO - Université d'Orléans - UT - Université de Tours) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we challenge the claim that an independent conservative central bank strengthens the likelihood of a conservative government. In contrast, if an election is based on the comparative advantages of the candidates, an inflation-averse central banker can deter the chances of a conservative candidate because once inflation is removed, its comparative advantage in the fight against inflation disappears. We develop a theory based on a policy-mix game with electoral competition, predicting that the chances of a conservative (i.e., inflation-averse) party is reduced in the presence of tighter monetary policy. To test this prediction, we examine monthly data of British political history between 1960 and 2015. We show that a 1 percentage point increase in the interest rate in the 10 months prior to a national election decreases the popularity of a Tory government by approximately 0.75 percentage points relative to its trend. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy,elections,United Kingdom,comparative advantage |
| Date: | 2021–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03479411&r= |
| By: | ElDidi, Hagar; Rawat, Shivanyaa; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela; Chaturvedi, Rahul |
| Abstract: | Commons governance is complex and polycentric, involving a range of actors, working at different scales with different concepts of ‘development’, and different types of power. Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) have generated considerable attention as a way to address these tensions among multiple and overlapping decision-making centers operating on different administrative levels and scales. Yet establishing MSPs that effectively involve both community, government, and private sector actors is far from straightforward. This paper analyzes the Indian NGO Foundation for Ecological Security’s (FES) experience of strengthening polycentric governance through case studies of two MSPs in Gujarat and Odisha, at the block (subdistrict) level—a meso-level encompassing multiple communities situated around a commons landscape (hill range or small rivulet). By comparing local environments, institutional arrangements, stakeholder interactions, governance processes and the evolution of MSPs in the two states, it distills lessons on the tangible and intangible benefits of multi-stakeholder engagement, scale, and enabling conditions. We argue that the groundwork carried to build community level collective action supports effective polycentric governance of resources on the landscape level, especially through block-level MSPs that facilitate inter-community collaboration and learning, strengthening local voices and building trust between stakeholders over time. The cases also highlight that MSPs can evolve in different ways as the various actors interact and aim to influence the agenda. External actors like NGOs thus play an important role as facilitators and through mobilizing communities to help them claim their agency. |
| Keywords: | INDIA; SOUTH ASIA; ASIA; commons; governance; multi-stakeholder processes; multi-stakeholder platforms; polycentricity |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2067&r= |