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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Yasmine Bekkouche (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles); Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | What is the impact of campaign spending on votes? Does it vary across election types, political parties or electoral settings? Estimating these effects requires comprehensive data on spending across candidates, parties and elections, as well as identification strategies that handle the endogenous and strategic nature of campaign spending in multiparty systems. This paper provides novel contributions in both of these areas. We build a new comprehensive dataset of all French legislative and UK general elections over the 1993–2017 period. We propose new empirical specifications, including a new instrument that relies on the fact that candidates are differentially affected by regulation on the source of funding on which they depend the most. We find that an increase in spending per voter consistently improves candidates' vote share, both at British and French elections, and that the effect is heterogeneous depending on candidates' party. In particular, we show that spending by radical and extreme parties has much lower returns than spending by mainstream parties, and that this can be partly explained by the social stigma attached to extreme voting. Our findings help reconcile the conflicting results of the existing literature, and improve our understanding of why campaigns matter. |
| Keywords: | Elections,Campaign financing,Campaign expenditures,Campaign finance reform,Multiparty electoral data,Heterogeneous effects of campaign spending |
| Date: | 2022–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03389172&r= |
| By: | Carozzi, Felipe; Cipullo, Davide; Repetto, Luca |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how political fragmentation affects government stability. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that each additional party with representation in the local parliament increases the probability that the incumbent government is unseated by 5 percentage points. The entry of an additional party affects stability by reducing the probability of a single-party majority and increasing the instability of governments when such a majority is not available. We interpret our results in light of a bargaining model of coalition formation featuring government instability. |
| Keywords: | government; stability; fragmentation; no-confidence votes; bargaining |
| JEL: | C78 D72 H70 |
| Date: | 2022–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108934&r= |
| By: | Bredtmann, Julia (RWI) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of local exposure to refugees on electoral outcomes in the 2016 state election in Germany. Based on quasi-random variation in the allocation of refugees across municipalities and unique data on refugee populations and their type of accommodation, I find that an increase in the population share of refugees increases the vote share of right-wing parties and decreases the vote share of the incumbent federal government parties. The electoral effects, however, are solely driven by refugees living in centralized accommodation, while no such effects are found for refugees living in decentralized accommodation. These findings have important implications for the design of public policies in handling future receptions of refugees, as they reveal that an earlier transfer of refugees from centralized to decentralized accommodation could attenuate a growing support for right-wing parties. |
| Keywords: | immigration, refugees, political economy, voting |
| JEL: | D72 F22 J15 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15356&r= |
| By: | Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We study electoral campaigns over the long run, through the lens of their spending. In particular, we ask whether changing media technologies and electoral environments impacted patterns of spending and their correlation with electoral results. To do so, we build a novel exhaustive dataset on general elections in the United Kingdom from 1857 to 2017, which includes information on campaign spending (itemized by expense categories), electoral outcomes and socio-demographic characteristics for 69, 042 election-constituency candidates. We start by providing new insights on the history of British political campaigns, in particular the growing importance of advertising material, including via digital means, to the detriment of paid staff and electoral meetings. We then show that there is a strong positive correlation between expenditures and votes, and that overall the magnitude of this relationship has strongly increased since the 1880s, with a peak in the last quarter of the 20th century. We link these transformations to changes in the conduct of campaigns, and to the introduction of new information technologies. We show in particular that the expansion of local radio and broadband Internet increased the sensitivity of the electoral results to differences in campaign spending. These results encourage greater contextualization in the drafting of campaign finance regulations. |
| Keywords: | Elections,Campaign finance,Electoral expenditures,Information technologies |
| Date: | 2021–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03384143&r= |
| By: | Stensholt, Eivind (Dept. of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In MMP-elections (Mixed Member Proportional representation), a QP-ballot contains a first-vote for party Q’s candidate in a single-seat constituency and a second-vote for a list of candidates from party P in one common tally. In split ballots P≠Q. Traditional accounting (e.g. in Bundestag elections) does not record a ballot’s combination of first- and second-vote; collecting them in separate ballot boxes will not change the result. The assembly size is out of control (111 extra-ordinary list seats in 2017 (137 in 2021). Faithful accounting uses these combinations to obtain a predetermined size (the law’s Bundestag norm is 299 list seats), while still complying with MMP’s proportionality rule. The Federal Constitutional Court emphasizes the principle of all voters’ equal influence on the result. In 2017 and 2021 many split QP-ballots gave full support to two winners, but QQ-ballots only to one (Q=CSU). Faithful accounting removes this and some other inequalities in voters’ influence on the election outcome. The 2017 election achieved a unique transparency by giving top priority to (strict) proportionality. As the main example, it allows the following exposition of MMP with faithful accounting. A broader discussion in a wider setting, with references, is found in The Structure of MMP-elections. |
| Keywords: | Mixed member proportional; equal influence; assembly size; split ballots; faithful accounting |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2022–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2022_011&r= |
| By: | Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies electoral campaigns over the long run, through the lens of their spending. In particular, we ask whether changing media technologies and electoral environments have impacted patterns of campaign spending, and their correlation with electoral results. To do so, we build a novel exhaustive dataset on general elections in the United Kingdom from 1857 to 2017, which includes information on campaign spending (itemized by expense categories), electoral outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics for 69,042 election-constituency-candidates. We start by providing new insights on the history of British political campaigns, documenting in particular the growing importance of advertising material (including via digital means), to the detriment of paid staff and electoral meetings. Using a saturated fixed effects model, we then show that there is a strong positive correlation between expenditures and votes, and that overall the magnitude of this relationship has strongly increased since the 1880s, peaking in the last quarter of the 20th century. We link these transformations to changes in the conduct of campaigns, and to the introduction of new information technologies. We show in particular that the expansion of local radio and broadband Internet increased the sensitivity of the electoral results to differences in campaign spending. |
| Abstract: | Cet article étudie les campagnes électorales sur le long terme, à travers le prisme de leurs dépenses. En particulier, nous investiguons l'impact des évolutions majeures dans les technologies de l'information et les contextes électoraux sur les niveaux, allocations et influences des dépenses des candidats. Pour ce faire, nous construisons un nouvel ensemble de données exhaustif sur les élections générales au Royaume-Uni de 1857 à 2017, qui comprend des informations sur les dépenses de campagne (détaillées par catégories de dépenses), les résultats électoraux et les caractéristiques sociodémographiques de 69042 candidats-élections-circonscriptions. Nous commençons par apporter de nouveaux éclairages sur l'histoire des campagnes politiques britanniques, en documentant notamment l'importance croissante du matériel publicitaire (y compris via des moyens numériques), au détriment du personnel rémunéré et des meetings électoraux. À l'aide d'un modèle à effets fixes, nous montrons ensuite qu'il existe une forte corrélation positive entre les dépenses des candidats et les résultats électoraux de ceux ci, et que, dans l'ensemble, la magnitude de cette relation a fortement augmenté depuis les années 1880, pour atteindre un pic dans le dernier quart du XXe siècle. Nous lions ces transformations à des changements dans les stratégies de campagne et à l'introduction de nouvelles technologies de l'information. Nous montrons en particulier que l'expansion de la radio locale et de l'ADSL a augmenté la sensibilité des résultats électoraux aux différences de dépenses de campagne. |
| Keywords: | Electoral campaigns,Campaign spending,Elections |
| Date: | 2022–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03619549&r= |
| By: | Federico Fioravanti; Iyad Rahwan; Fernando Abel Tohm\'e |
| Abstract: | We present an axiomatic study of a method to automate ethical AI decision making. We consider two different but very intuitive notions of when an alternative is preferred over another, namely {\it pairwise majority} and {\it position} dominance. Voter preferences are learned through a permutation process and then aggregation rules are applied to obtain results that are socially considered to be ethically correct. In this setting we find many voting rules that satisfy desirable properties for an autonomous system. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2206.05160&r= |
| By: | Soroush Ebadian; Anson Kahng; Nisarg Shah; Dominik Peters |
| Abstract: | A voting rule decides on a probability distribution over a set of $m$ alternatives, based on rankings of those alternatives provided by agents. We assume that agents have cardinal utility functions over the alternatives, but voting rules have access to only the rankings induced by these utilities. We evaluate how well voting rules do on measures of social welfare and of proportional fairness, computed based on the hidden utility functions. In particular, we study the distortion of voting rules, which is a worst-case measure. It is an approximation ratio comparing the utilitarian social welfare of the optimum outcome to the welfare of the outcome selected by the voting rule, in the worst case over possible input profiles and utility functions that are consistent with the input. The literature has studied distortion with unit-sum utility functions, and left a small asymptotic gap in the best possible distortion. Using tools from the theory of fair multi-winner elections, we propose the first voting rule which achieves the optimal distortion $\Theta(\sqrt{m})$ for unit-sum utilities. Our voting rule also achieves optimum $\Theta(\sqrt{m})$ distortion for unit-range and approval utilities. We then take a similar worst-case approach to a quantitative measure of the fairness of a voting rule, called proportional fairness. Informally, it measures whether the influence of cohesive groups of agents on the voting outcome is proportional to the group size. We show that there is a voting rule which, without knowledge of the utilities, can achieve an $O(\log m)$-approximation to proportional fairness, the best possible approximation. As a consequence of its proportional fairness, we show that this voting rule achieves $O(\log m)$ distortion with respect to Nash welfare, and provides an $O(\log m)$-approximation to the core, making it interesting for applications in participatory budgeting. |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2205.15760&r= |
| By: | Ennio Bilancini; Leonardo Boncinelli; Alessandro Tampieri |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of strategy assortativity for the evolution of parochialism. Individuals belonging to different groups are matched in pairs to play a prisoner’s dilemma, conditioning their choice on the identity of the partner. Strategy assortativity implies that a player is more likely to be matched with someone playing the same strategy. We find that, if the degree of strategy assortativity is sufficiently high, then parochialism (i.e., cooperate with your own group and defect with others) spreads over a group, while egoism (i.e., defect with everyone) emerges otherwise. Notably, parochialism is more likely to emerge in smaller groups. |
| Keywords: | prisoner's dilemma, cooperation, in-group favoritism, cultures, asymptotic stability |
| JEL: | C72 C73 Z10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2022_06.rdf&r= |
| By: | Mostapha Diss (CRESE EA3190, Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comté, F-25000 Besançon, France); Clinton Gubong Gassi (CRESE EA3190, Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comté, F-25000 Besançon, France & Department of Mathematics - University of Yaounde I. BP 47 Yaounde, Cameroon); Issofa Moyouwou (Ecole Normale Supérieure - Department of Mathematics - University of Yaounde I. BP 47 Yaounde, Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | We study the relationships between two well-known social choice concepts, namely the principle of social acceptability introduced by Mahajne and Volij (2018), and the majoritarian compromise rule introduced by Sertel (1986) and studied in detail by Sertel and Yılmaz (1999). The two concepts have been introduced separately in the literature in the spirit of selecting an alternative that satisfies most individuals in single-winner elections. Our results in this paper show that the two concepts are so closely related that the interaction between them cannot be ignored. We show that the majoritarian compromise rule always selects a socially acceptable alternative when the number of alternatives is even and we provide a necessary and sufficient condition so that the majoritarian compromise rule always selects a socially acceptable alternative when the number of alternatives is odd. Moreover, we show that when we restrict ourselves to the three well-studied classes of single-peaked, single-caved, and single-crossing preferences, the majoritarian compromise rule always picks a socially acceptable alternative whatever the number of alternatives and the number of voters. |
| Keywords: | Voting, Single-winner elections, Social acceptability, Majoritarian compromise rule |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2022-05&r= |
| By: | Julie Litchfield (Department of Economics, University of Sussex); Elodie Douarin (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London); Fatlinda Gashi (Department of Economics, University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of the 1998-99 Kosovo war on current levels of political participation, disaggregating our analysis by the type of conflict experience, namely death or injury to self or a family member, or displacement, and by gender. We show that conflict is associated with more political participation, but with important distinctions between genders in terms of the form of participation and the experience itself. Displacement is associated with more voting among women, but not among men, and with more demonstrating by men but weaker or no effects for women; death and injury are associated with more political party membership for men, but not women. We argue that while experiences of conflict do generally increase levels of political participation, the form that this takes varies by gender, with effects on private, civic, action among women, and effects on direct, public, active, arguably more emotionally heightened engagement among men. |
| Keywords: | conflict, political participation, gender |
| JEL: | D74 O17 Z13 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:355&r= |
| By: | Ashani Amarasinghe (University of Sydney and SoDa Laboratories, Monash University); Paul A. Raschky (Department of Economics and SoDa Laboratories, Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of talk radio, specifically the Rush Limbaugh Show, on electoral outcomes and attitude polarization in the U.S. We propose a novel identification strategy that considers the radio space in each county as a market where multiple stations are competing for listeners’ attention. Our measure of competition is a spatial Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) in radio frequencies. To address endogeneity concerns, we exploit the variation in competition based on accidental frequency overlaps in a county, conditional on the overall level of radio frequency competition. We find that counties with higher exposure to the Rush Limbaugh Show have a systematically higher vote share for Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Combining our county-level Rush Limbaugh Show exposure measure with individual survey data reveals that self-identifying Republicans in counties with higher exposure to the Show express more conservative political views, while self-identifying Democrats in these same counties express more moderate political views. Taken together, these findings provide some of the first insights on the effects of contemporary talk radio on political outcomes, both at the aggregate and individual level. |
| Keywords: | Talk radio, elections, political polarization, U.S. |
| JEL: | D72 L82 N42 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2022-13&r= |
| By: | Mitsch, Frieder; McNeil, Andrew |
| Abstract: | A clean environment is a public good, with the benefits shared by all. While most individuals can agree on the need to implement green policies, we argue that the cost-benefit calculation is quite different depending on where one lives. Those individuals living in places where green infrastructure is infeasible, such as cities, can advocate for green technologies knowing that the chance of having to bear the cost of infrastructure in their ‘backyard’ is low. We test how the building of wind turbines and solar farms changes one’s political preferences in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. We use a difference-indifference design based on whether one’s area is designated for potential infrastructure in the future. We show that when the burden of ‘green’ infrastructure falls on voters, wind turbines or solar farms in one’s ‘backyard’, these local authorities vote less for the Green Party. Additionally, using individual level data from SOEP, we find that it is those individuals who previously voted Green who are the most likely to desert their party in the face of green infrastructure, rather than disincentivising potential ‘switchers’. We argue that this has profound implications for the move to ‘net zero’. Green parties face a Catch22 situation, the very policies that draw their support create a backlash when implemented. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2022–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:115269&r= |