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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Lourdes Rojas Rubio (Université de Cergy-Pontoise, THEMA) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that interest-group leaders can influence policies and electoral outcomes through socialisation, endorsement, or both. The leader’s decision of which mechanisms to implement depends on the characteristics of the group. Each mechanism differs in its effect on group members’ preferences and candidates’ announced political platforms. Leader endorsement helps to convey information to all participants and influences group members’ preferences. Instead, leader socialisation permanently shapes group members’ preferences toward his own. I develop four models of political competition, three of which examine separately or jointly the effects of those mechanisms on electoral platforms and outcomes. Furthermore, I illustrate the empirical relevance of the leaders’ mechanisms by discussing the religious leaders’ influence on politics in three case studies from different regions of the world. |
| Keywords: | Socialisation, endorsement, political competition, leadership, club goods, religion, democratic elections. |
| JEL: | D02 D72 H4 O57 P48 Z12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2022-16&r= |
| By: | Enriqueta Aragonès; Clara Ponsatí |
| Abstract: | We propose a two party electoral competition model to analyze the effects of an exogenous shock over the relative issue salience on the strategic policy choices of the parties. We find that both parties strategically shift their policy choices from their ideal points towards the ideal point of the median voter of the newly salient issue. The polarization of the distribution of the voters preferences produces a disadvantage for one of the parties, which is forced to implement a large policy shift. We argue that a large policy shift may break a party internal balance among its different factions, which in turn may produce important disruptions in the party system. We illustrate our arguments with an analysis of recent events in Catalonia and the UK. |
| Keywords: | preference shock, relative salience, party consistency |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1316&r= |
| By: | Lucia Dalla Pellegrina; Giorgio Di Maio; Mario Gilli |
| Abstract: | This study aims to investigate the demographic, social, and economic drivers of rising abstention and populist electoral success in Italy in 2018. The Italian case is unique in the euro area because, in the political elections of 4 March 2018, two parties usually identified as left-wing and right-wing populists (Movimento 5 Stelle and Lega) obtained an absolute majority of valid votes. In reverse, the main established parties, the center-left Partito Democratico and the center-right Forza Italia, which have alternated in government since 1994, reached their minimum electoral consent. We study the Italian case at the level of the 110 Italian provinces (NUTS 3) by using a data set containing a wide set of demographic and socio-economic indicators, in addition to the results of the political elections in 2008, 2013, and 2018.We regress the results of the political elections of 2018, i.e., abstention and votes obtained by the main parties expressed as a share of citizens entitled to vote, on nine factors obtained by applying an exploratory factor analysis on 41 demographic and socioeconomic variables. Results suggest that abstention is associated with the State’s failure in providing socioeconomic development and security and in repressing organized crime. Moreover, socio-economic well-being is the main driver of voting behavior. In particular, the left-wing populist Movimento 5 Stelle has been successful in the more backward Italian provinces and the right-wing populist Lega in the more developed ones. These results indicate that in 2018 mainstream parties have fallen out of favor with both the most backward and the most advanced provinces, suggesting that the notion of populism should be qualified for an understanding of the observed varieties of non-mainstream parties and voting or abstention behavior. |
| Keywords: | Populism, voting, abstention, electoral turnout, Italy. |
| JEL: | D72 D78 H11 J68 P16 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:503&r= |
| By: | Federico Fioravanti (Universidad Nacional del Sur/CONICET); Massó Jordi (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | We consider the problem of a society that uses a voting rule to select a subset from a given set of objects (candidates, binary issues or alike). We assume that voters’preferences over subsets of objects are separable: Adding an object to a set leads to a better set if and only if the object is good (as a singleton set, the object is better thanthe empty set). A voting rule is strategy-proof if no voter benefits by not revealing its preferences truthfully and it is false-name-proof if no voter gains by submitting severalvotes under other identities. We characterize all voting rules that verify false-nameproofness, strategy-proofness, unanimity, anonymity, and neutrality as either the classof voting by quota one (all voters can be decisive for all objects) or the class of voting by full quota (all voters can veto all objects). |
| Keywords: | False-name-proofness; Strategy-proofness; Separable Preferences |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:181&r= |
| By: | Auerbach, Jan |
| Abstract: | Many representative democracies experience political elitism in the sense that virtually all members of the national legislature are high-income citizens. However, evidence suggests that electoral prospects are independent of income in the sense that voters do not consider low-income candidates less competent or less likely to get their vote. I explore a financial-rewards channel through which political elitism can arise by self-selection when citizen-candidates’ electoral prospects are independent of income. Elitism arises if and only if the office is attractive and the difference in differences in income between holding office, collecting a salary and outside income, and being a private citizen is large enough. Higher income premia or more productive outside activity for high-income citizens are not necessary or sufficient. Outside income limits can always prevent elitism, while salary reform often cannot. The results offer context for some somewhat mixed evidence on the association between politician pay and politician background. |
| Keywords: | Political Elitism, Citizen-Candidates, Productive Office, Outside Income |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2022–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:114582&r= |
| By: | Kenju Kamei (Faculty of Economics, Keio University) |
| Abstract: | This study reports the result of a novel laboratory experiment that shows for the first time that the state of people fs self-regulatory resources influences reliance on formal enforcement of norms in a social dilemma. In a laboratory, subjects f self-regulatory resources are rigorously manipulated using well-known depletion tasks. On the one hand, when their resources are not depleted, the vast majority decide to govern themselves through monitoring and decentralized peer-to-peer punishment in a public goods dilemma, and then successfully achieve high cooperation norms. On the other hand, when their resources are small, the majority vote to enact a costly formal sanctioning institution and then construct deterrent punishment toward free riders; backed by formal punishment, the groups achieve strong cooperation. A supplementary survey regarding the Covid-19 pandemic was also conducted to enhance the external validity of the finding, generating a similar pattern. The so-called self-control and commitment preferences combined with inequality aversion can explain these patterns, because the theory predicts that those with smaller self-regulatory resources are motivated to remove temptations in advance as a commitment device, thereby avoiding a large self-control cost. This underscores the role of commitment in a social dilemma context. |
| Keywords: | Institutional choices;social dilemma;public goods;self-control;punishment |
| JEL: | C92 D72 H41 |
| Date: | 2022–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:2022-014&r= |
| By: | Sang-Hyun Kim (Yonsei University); Chulyoung Kim (Yonsei University); Jinhyuk Lee (Korea University); Joosung Lee (University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | In a veto game, we investigate the effects of “buyout” which allows non-veto players strategically form an intermediate coalition. First, our experimental findings show that the proportion of intermediate coalition formation is much lower than predicted by theory, regardless of the relative negotiation power between veto and non-veto players. Second, allowing coalition formation among non-veto players does not affect the surplus distribution between veto and nonveto players, which diverges from core allocations. These findings contrast to the literature, which views the ability to form an intermediate coalition as a valuable asset for non-veto players in increasing their bargaining power. |
| Keywords: | game theory; coalition bargaining; veto game; experiment; non-core allocation; intermediate coalition formation. |
| JEL: | C72 C78 C92 D72 D74 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2022rwp-198&r= |
| By: | Daniel W. Derbyshire (European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter); Michalis Drouvelis (Department of Economics, University of Birmingham); Brit Grosskopf (Department of Economics, University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | We present the results of one-shot and repeated public good experiments that seek to understand the interaction between the endowment and marginal return in heterogeneous groups. Our focus is on treatments in which the endowment and the marginal return are either inverse or proportionally related to each other. While two normatively appealing contribution rules are aligned in the proportional treatment, a conflict between the two exists in the inverse treatment. In the one-shot experiments, we do not find significant differences across treatments. Contributions increase when the endowment, the marginal return or both increase. This is observed in all treatments except when the endowment and the marginal return are inversely related. In this case, the 'middle class' participants contribute more than both the high and low endowment types, mirroring real world observations with regards to a 'squeezed middle'. This suggests the presence of a conflict between the highly endowed subjects (but with low marginal return) and those with a high marginal return (but with low endowment). This pattern is similar when we elicit beliefs about others' contributions, whereby the two conflicting types expect others to contribute more than they do for themselves. In the long-run, however, when allowing for repeated interaction, the differences across types vanish in the inverse but not in the proportional treatment. This suggests that over time the conflicting interests arising from the interplay between the endowment and the marginal return can be overcome. Our findings have welfare implications indicating that the inverse treatment reduces inequality measured by the Gini coefficient but this is not the case for the proportional treatment, where inequality remains the same. |
| Keywords: | public goods, heterogeneity, endowment, marginal return, contribution norms |
| JEL: | H41 C92 D60 |
| Date: | 2022–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:2206&r= |
| By: | Mathieu Lefebvre (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Lucie Martin-Bonnel de Longchamp (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an artefactual field experiment with craftsmen working on renovation projects to assess the effect of training programs and incentive schemes on coordination. Workers frequently fail to coordinate their tasks when not supervised by a project coordinator. This is particularly important in the construction sector where it leads to a lack of final performance in buildings. We introduce two different incentives: a first contract paying craftsmen only according to their individual performance, and a second contract paying a group of three craftsmen with a weak-link payment according to the group's worst performance. In addition, we test these incentives on two different subject groups: one is composed of craftsmen trained to coordinate their tasks, and the others are not. The results suggest that trained subjects coordinate at significantly higher effort levels than non-trained subjects when facing an individual-based incentive. However, when facing a group-based incentive, non-trained subjects seem to "catch up" trained subjects in terms of coordination level, while these latter subjects do not significantly increase their performance level. |
| Keywords: | Coordination,Real-effort weak-link experiment,Artefactual field experiment,Individual incentive,Group incentive |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03777415&r= |