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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Th\'eo Delemazure; Tom Demeulemeester; Manuel Eberl; Jonas Israel; Patrick Lederer |
| Abstract: | In party-approval multiwinner elections the goal is to allocate the seats of a fixed-size committee to parties based on the approval ballots of the voters over the parties. In particular, each voter can approve multiple parties and each party can be assigned multiple seats. Two central requirements in this setting are proportional representation and strategyproofness. Intuitively, proportional representation requires that every sufficiently large group of voters with similar preferences is represented in the committee. Strategyproofness demands that no voter can benefit by misreporting her true preferences. We show that these two axioms are incompatible for anonymous party-approval multiwinner voting rules, thus proving a far-reaching impossibility theorem. The proof of this result is obtained by formulating the problem in propositional logic and then letting a SAT solver show that the formula is unsatisfiable. Additionally, we demonstrate how to circumvent this impossibility by considering a weakening of strategy\-proofness which requires that only voters who do not approve any elected party cannot manipulate. While most common voting rules fail even this weak notion of strategyproofness, we characterize Chamberlin--Courant approval voting within the class of Thiele rules based on this strategyproofness notion. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.13567&r=cdm |
| By: | Endrich, Marek |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the political reaction of residents to refugee housings in their neighborhood. The city of Hamburg, Germany, experienced between 2014 and 2021 large refugee inflows that required many new housings. Openings of refugee housings led to an increase in the vote share of anti-immigrant right-wing parties in the neighborhood. The effect is persistent, driven by the exposure of residents to large reception centers and followup accommodations and amplified for facilities with a high share of male inhabitants. Results are robust to a matching estimator that accounts for an unbalanced distribution of housings. Neighborhoods with worse economic conditions, many migrants of other origins and a relatively large share of allocated refugee housings react more negatively to openings. With the finding that new housings come with electoral losses for the ruling party, it suggests that frustration by residents about a biased allocation is one contributing factor to the vote gains of right-wing parties. |
| Keywords: | migration,political economy,refugee housing,voting |
| JEL: | F22 D72 J15 H76 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ilewps:65&r=cdm |
| By: | S. Nageeb Ali; B. Douglas Bernheim; Alexander W. Bloedel; Silvia Console Battilana |
| Abstract: | This paper models legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated and the agenda setter cannot commit to her future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite outcome in every equilibrium regardless of the initial default policy. Central to our results is a new condition on preferences, manipulability, that holds in rich policy spaces, including spatial settings and distribution problems. Our results overturn the conventional wisdom that voter sophistication alone constrains an agenda setter's power. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2212.01263&r=cdm |
| By: | Gabriel, Ricardo Duque (Bonn Graduate School of Economics and Department of Economics, University of Bonn); Klein, Mathias (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Pessoa, Sofia (Bonn Graduate School of Economics and Department of Economics, University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | Using a novel regional database covering over 200 elections in several European countries, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the political consequences of fiscal consolidations.To identify exogenous reductions in regional public spending, we use a Bartik-type instrument that combines regional sensitivities to changes in national government expenditures with narrative national consolidation episodes. Fiscal consolidations lead to a significant increase in extreme parties’ vote share, lower voter turnout, and a rise in political fragmentation. We highlight the close relationship between detrimental economic developments and voters’ support for extreme parties by showing that austerity induces severe economic costs through lowering GDP, employment, private investment, and wages. Austerity-driven recessions amplify the political costs of economic downturns considerably by increasing distrust in the political environment. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal policy; Austerity; Voting behavior; Political economy |
| JEL: | D72 E62 H53 |
| Date: | 2022–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0418&r=cdm |
| By: | Andreas Kammerlander (University of Freiburg); Kerstin Unfried (Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine) |
| Abstract: | Bringing the model by Choi (2014) to a spatial context, we investigate and assess the link between political favoritism and internal conflict. In particular, we compare the difference in the likelihood and intensity of conflict between regions in which citizens reside that belong to identity groups of political leaders and others over time in a global sample. Combining geo-coded conflict data with self-gathered information on the birthplaces and ethnic affiliation of 836 political national leaders and using a two-way fixed effects model with region and country-year fixed effects, we find that regions experience 10% fewer casualties while they constitute the birth region of the national leader in autocracies. We also find evidence for ethnic favoritism. Our analysis indicates that autocratic leaders use political favoritism (in armed forces) and other coup-proofing strategies to remain in power that reduce the intensity of conflict in their homelands. |
| Keywords: | political favoritism, identity politics, conflict, geo-data |
| JEL: | D72 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:378&r=cdm |