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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Pablo Arribillaga; Agustín Bonifacio |
| Abstract: | In a classical voting problem with a finite set of (at least three) alternatives to choose from, we study the manipulation of tops-only and unanimous rules. Since strategy-proofness is impossible to obtain on the universal domain of (strict) preferences, we investigate the weaker concept of non-obvious manipulability (NOM). First, we show that NOM is equivalent to every veto from any agent being a strong veto. Second, we focus on two classes of tops-only rules: (i) (generalized) median voter schemes, and (ii) voting by committees. For each class, we identify which rules satisfy NOM on the universal domain of preferences. |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4536&r=cdm |
| By: | Chris Dong; Patrick Lederer |
| Abstract: | Approval-based committee (ABC) voting rules elect a fixed size subset of the candidates, a so-called committee, based on the voters' approval ballots over the candidates. While these rules have recently attracted significant attention, axiomatic characterizations are largely missing so far. We address this problem by characterizing ABC voting rules within the broad and intuitive class of sequential valuation rules. These rules compute the winning committees by sequentially adding candidates that increase the score of the chosen committee the most. In more detail, we first characterize almost the full class of sequential valuation rules based on mild standard conditions and a new axiom called consistent committee monotonicity. This axiom postulates that the winning committees of size k can be derived from those of size k-1 by only adding candidates and that these new candidates are chosen consistently. By requiring additional conditions, we derive from this result also a characterization of the prominent class of sequential Thiele rules. Finally, we refine our results to characterize three well-known ABC voting rules, namely sequential approval voting, sequential proportional approval voting, and sequential Chamberlin-Courant approval voting. |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2302.11890&r=cdm |
| By: | Federico Boffa; Vincenzo Mollisi; Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto |
| Abstract: | Poor performance by the established political class can drive voters towards anti-establishment outsiders. Is the inffectiveness of incumbent politicians an important driver of the recent rise of populist parties? We provide an empirical test exploiting a sharp discontinuity in the wage of local politicians as a function of population in Italian municipalities. We find that the more skilled local politicians and more effective local government in municipalities above the threshold cause a signiÂ…cant drop in voter support for the populist Five-Star Movement in regional and national elections. Support for incumbent governing parties increases instead. |
| Keywords: | Populism, Government e¢ ciency, Politician quality, Political agency |
| JEL: | D72 D73 H70 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1861&r=cdm |
| By: | Jorge Alcalde-Unzu; Oihane Gallo; Elena Inarra; Juan D. Moreno-Ternero |
| Abstract: | Agents may form coalitions. Each coalition shares its endowment among its agents by applying a sharing rule. The sharing rule induces a coalition formation problem by assuming that agents rank coalitions according to the allocation they obtain in the corresponding sharing problem. We characterize the sharing rules that induce a class of stable coalition formation problems as those that satisfy a natural axiom that formalizes the principle of solidarity. Thus, solidarity becomes a sufficient condition to achieve stability. |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2302.07618&r=cdm |
| By: | Giovanni Andreottola (Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) and CSEF); Elia Sartori (CSEF) |
| Abstract: | We study the use of simplistic arguments in political communication, developing a novel model of mobilization through rhetoric with naive and sophisticated voters. We show that politicians sometimes choose simplistic arguments in order to appear more competent, exploiting what we call Poe’s Law, that is, the uncertainty on whether the argument used by the politician reflects her own competence or is ‘degraded’ to meet the demand for simplistic arguments of the naive electorate. We compare the Bayes Nash game with a game in which sophisticated voters are unable to conceptualize Poe’s Law, dismissing their peers’ cognitive abilities and identifying with a leader that speaks to a fully naive crowd. The two games have opposed predictions on how expected simplism departs from its demand-driven benchmark, as well as on the interpretation of extreme arguments. Our results demonstrate that dismissal is a valid rationalization of an overly simplistic political debate. |
| Keywords: | Simplistic rhetoric, Dismissal, Poe’s Law, Populism. |
| JEL: | D72 D82 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2023–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:668&r=cdm |
| By: | Kirneva Margarita; N\'u\~nez Mat\'ias |
| Abstract: | We design a mechanism, Majority voting with random checks, that fully implements the majority rule for binary social decisions. After a simultaneous vote over the two options, the winner must be confirmed by at least one agent from a random sample of agents voting sequentially. The mechanism incentivizes agents to act truthfully as a lottery is held if no agent confirms the outcome. Our mechanism also reduces by almost half the number of stages required for implementation. Furthermore, we extend our results to incomplete information and abstention and introduce additional implementation mechanisms based on the concept of network formation |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2302.09548&r=cdm |
| By: | Romain Ferrali (New York University [Abu Dhabi] - NYU - NYU System, 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); Guy Grossman (University of Pennsylvania); Melina Platas (New York University [Abu Dhabi] - NYU - NYU System); Jonathan Rodden (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | Who registers to vote? Although extensive research has examined the question of who votes, our understanding of the determinants of political participation will be limited until we know who is missing from the voter register. Studying voter registration in lower-income settings is particularly challenging due to data constraints. We link the official voter register with a complete social network census of 16 villages to analyze the correlates of voter registration in rural Uganda, examining the role of individual-level attributes and social ties. We find evidence that social ties are important for explaining registration status within and across households. Village leaders-and through them, household heads-play an important role in explaining the registration status of others in the village, suggesting a diffuse process of social influence. Socioeconomic factors such as income and education do not explain registration in this setting. Together these findings suggest an alternate theory of participation is required. |
| Keywords: | African politics, elections, public opinion, voting behavior, representation, electoral systems |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03994137&r=cdm |
| By: | Johannes Wimmer (LMU Munich); Leonhard Vollmer (LMU Munich) |
| Abstract: | The rise of right-wing populism throughout Western democracies coincided with an increasing adoption of social media – both among supporters and opponents of right-wing populism alike. In light of these trends, we assess whether grassroots organizations are effective in combating right-wing populism via social media. We study this question using a tightly controlled online field experiment embedded in the Facebook campaign of a German grassroots organization. Leveraging geo-spatial variation in where the organization disseminated its Facebook ads targeting Germany’s leading right-wing populist party (AfD), we find that the campaign did not significantly affect the AfD’s vote share and turnout. Drawing on data from a complementary online experiment, we show that insufficient outreach on Facebook together with the absence of individual-level responses of attitudes and behavior explains why the campaign did not meaningfully shape aggregate election outcomes. |
| Date: | 2023–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:390&r=cdm |
| By: | Mona Foertsch; Felix Roesel |
| Abstract: | Does social capital always promote solidarity and democracy, or are social networks such as sports clubs also vulnerable to populism? We exploit quasi-experimental variation in sports club membership in German cities. Sports clubs are booming in cities with successful soccer teams which pass the promotion threshold for a higher division, but not where teams marginally missed on promotion. Difference-in-differences estimations show that far-right populists enjoy more support in cities with higher sports club membership rates in the wake of marginally promoted soccer teams. The populist momentum is however rather short-living, indicating that sports clubs intensify group polarization but are not a spot of permanent radicalization. |
| Keywords: | social capital, sports clubs, populism, Gemany |
| JEL: | D71 D72 Z20 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10259&r=cdm |
| By: | Jakub Grossmann; Stepan Jurajda |
| Abstract: | There is growing evidence on the role of economic conditions in the recent successes of populist and extremist parties. However, little is known about the role of over-indebtedness, even though debtor distress has grown in Europe following the financial crisis. We study the unique case of the Czech Republic, where by 2017, nearly one in ten citizens had been served at least one debtor distress warrant even though the country consistently features low unemployment. Our municipality-level difference-in-differences analysis asks about the voting consequences of a rise in debtor distress following a 2001 deregulation of consumer-debt collection. We find that debtor distress has a positive effect on support for (new) extreme right and populist parties, but a negative effect on a (traditional) extreme-left party. The effects of debtor distress we uncover are robust to whether and how we control for economic hardship; the effects of debtor distress and economic hardship are of similar magnitude, but operate in opposing directions across the political spectrum. |
| Keywords: | Debtor distress; distress warrants; populist parties; extremist parties; the Czech Republic; |
| JEL: | D72 D18 G51 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp744&r=cdm |
| By: | Darpö, Erik; Domínguez, Alvaro; Martín-Rodríguez, María |
| Abstract: | We present a model analyzing the endogenous network formation prior to an infinite-horizon network bargaining game. We assume agents of two types with either one of two alternatives: connections among players of the same type are cheaper than among players of different type or vice versa. In this way, players not only need to consider the trade-off between more outside options and the costs of maintaining those additional links, but also what type of players they connect to. We characterize pairwise stable network structures through necessary and sufficient conditions, highlighting the role played by the way in which heterogeneous nodes are placed in the different components for the pairwise stability of the networks. Finally, we perform a welfare analysis, comparing the efficient structures with those that are stable. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining, Heterogeneity, Network formation, C72, C78, D85 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000260&r=cdm |
| By: | Pan, Jingjing; Li, Jianbiao; Zhu, Chengkang |
| Abstract: | Although previous literature demonstrates that punishment is more efficient and stable than reward, in our daily life, numerous kinds of rewards permeate. One possible explanation for widely use of reward institution in practice is that it’s an efficient and satisfactory way to enhance cooperation and welfare in a social dilemma situation even the contribution is hardly evaluated accurately. Nevertheless, this explanation lacks support from empirical evidence. Our study aims to examine whether the institution with reward option is an efficient and satisfactory way to solve social dilemma problems under imperfect information conditions. We show that reward institutions sustain higher cooperation levels and let participants get more welfare under imperfect information conditions. Furthermore, we find most participants to have a tendency to favor reward institutions, even when the information is highly noisy. Our study sheds light on the superiority of reward institutions over punishment institutions in a realistic world. |
| Keywords: | Public goods games, Reward, Imperfect information, Cooperation, Welfare |
| JEL: | C91 C92 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:269216&r=cdm |
| By: | Simon Varaine; Raul Magni-Berton; Ismaël Benslimane; Paolo Crosetto |
| Abstract: | Studies have shown that intergroup conflict may result from two distinct human motives: the desire to obtain personal retributions from conflict (egoism), and the desire to sacrifice for the benefit of the ingroup (parochial altruism). Yet, the relative strength of these motives is open to debate. In this study, we compare behaviors in two Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemmas (IPD), which respectively capture altruistic and egoistic motives to generate conflict. Egoistic motives result in about 40% more conflicts than altruistic motives. Yet, parochial altruism generates more conflict when three conditions are gathered: i) other ingroup members are parochial altruists, ii) the outgroup is aggressive and iii) the outgroup is rich. Implications regarding the diverging structural causes of terrorism and civil wars are discussed. |
| Keywords: | parochial altruism, egoism, intergroup prisoner dilemma, intergroup conflict, terrorism, civil war |
| JEL: | C90 D72 D74 F51 H41 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gbl:wpaper:2022-04&r=cdm |
| By: | Emre Hatipoglu; Brian Efird; Saleh Al Muhanna (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the evolving political will in Japan to restart nuclear power plants to generate electric power, in light of the country’s political and economic developments over the past few years. We apply a model of collective decision-making processes (CDMPs), using the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB), to simulate the interactions among different interest groups including policymakers, national and local political leaders, electricity companies, and the public, given their varying interests, goals and priorities. |
| Date: | 2023–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:prc:dpaper:ks--2022-dp10&r=cdm |