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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Kiran Tomlinson; Johan Ugander; Jon Kleinberg |
| Abstract: | Instant runoff voting (IRV) has gained popularity in recent years as an alternative to traditional plurality voting. Advocates of IRV claim that one of its benefits relative to plurality voting is its tendency toward moderation: that it produces more moderate winners than plurality and could therefore be a useful tool for addressing polarization. However, there is little theoretical backing for this claim, and existing evidence has focused on simulations and case studies. In this work, we prove that IRV has a moderating effect relative to traditional plurality voting in a specific sense, developed in a 1-dimensional Euclidean model of voter preferences. Our results show that as long as voters are symmetrically distributed and not too concentrated at the extremes, IRV will not elect a candidate that is beyond a certain threshold in the tails of the distribution, while plurality can. For the uniform distribution, we provide an approach for deriving the exact distributions of the plurality and IRV winner positions, enabling further analysis. We also extend a classical analysis of so-called stick-breaking processes to derive the asymptotic winning plurality vote share, which we use to prove that plurality can elect arbitrarily extreme candidates even when there are many moderate options. |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2303.09734&r=cdm |
| By: | Angrist, Noam (University of Oxford); Winseck, Kevin (University of California at San Diego); Patrinos, Harry A. (World Bank); Graff Zivin, Joshua (University of California, San Diego) |
| Abstract: | Addressing climate change requires individual behavior change and voter support for pro-climate policies, yet surprisingly little is known about how to achieve these outcomes. In this paper, we estimate causal effects of additional education on pro-climate outcomes using new compulsory schooling law data across 16 European countries. We analyze effects on pro-climate beliefs, behaviors, policy preferences, and novel data on voting for green parties – a particularly consequential outcome to combat climate change. Results show a year of education increases pro-climate beliefs, behaviors, most policy preferences, and green voting, with voting gains equivalent to a substantial 35% increase. |
| Keywords: | human capital, education, climate change, compulsory schooling laws, voting |
| JEL: | D72 H41 I20 I28 P16 Q01 Q5 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15991&r=cdm |
| By: | Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib Anwar; Jorge Bruno; Renaud Foucart; Sonali Sen Gupta |
| Abstract: | We model a public goods game with groups, position uncertainty, and observational learning. Contributions are simultaneous within groups, but groups play sequentially based on their observation of an incomplete sample of past contributions. We show that full cooperation between and within groups is possible with self-interested players on a fixed horizon. Position uncertainty implies the existence of an equilibrium where groups of players conditionally cooperate in the hope of influencing further groups. Conditional cooperation implies that each group member is pivotal, so that efficient simultaneous provision within groups is an equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Public Goods, Groups, Position Uncertainty, Voluntary Contributions |
| JEL: | C72 D82 H41 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:377534420&r=cdm |
| By: | Johannes Matzat; Aiko Schmeißer |
| Abstract: | Labor unions’ greatest potential for political influence likely arises from their direct connection to millions of individuals at the workplace. There, they may change the ideological positions of both unionizing workers and their non-unionizing management. In this paper, we analyze the workplace-level impact of unionization on workers’ and managers’ political campaign contributions over the 1980-2016 period in the United States. To do so, we link establishment-level union election data with transaction-level campaign contributions to federal and local candidates. In a difference-in-differences design that we validate with regression discontinuity tests and a novel instrumental variables approach, we find that unionization leads to a leftward shift of campaign contributions. Unionization increases the support for Democrats relative to Republicans not only among workers but also among managers, which speaks against an increase in political cleavages between the two groups. We provide evidence that our results are not driven by compositional changes of the workforce and are weaker in states with Right-to-Work laws where unions can invest fewer resources in political activities. |
| Keywords: | labor unions, political ideology, campaign contributions, worker-manager relations |
| JEL: | D70 J50 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10301&r=cdm |
| By: | Gabriele Camera (Chapman University); Jaehong Kim (Xiamen University); David Rojo Arjona (Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | Understanding how incentives and institutions help scaling up cooperation is important, especially when strategic uncertainty is considerable. Evidence suggests that this is challenging even when full cooperation is theoretically sustainable thanks to indefinite repetition. In a controlled social dilemma experiment, we show that adding partial cooperation choices to the usual binary choice environment can raise cooperation and efficiency. Under suitable incentives, partial cooperation choices enable individuals to cheaply signal their desire to cooperate, reducing strategic uncertainty. The insight is that richer choice sets can form the basis of a language meaningful for coordinating on cooperation. |
| Keywords: | experiments, repeated games, social dilemmas, strategy estimation |
| JEL: | C70 C90 D03 E02 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:23-05&r=cdm |
| By: | Lefebvre, Perrin; Martimort, David |
| Abstract: | A substantial literature has been devoted to analyzing how legislators delegate regulatory power to a more knowledgeable agency. Yet, much less attention has been paid to understand how this delegation process is shaped by the environment in which this agency operates, and more specifically by the actions of interest groups. We propose a model of regula-tory capture to assess how the distribution of information across interest groups and agencies impacts optimal delegation. Whether an interest group and his agency share information or not determines the scope for capture and how much discretion should be left to this agency in response. Whether asymmetric information reduces or increases discretion depends on the biases of the group and the agency vis-`a-vis Congress. Groups that are more aligned with Congress collect politically relevant information, while more extreme groups remain poorly informed. The information structure that endogenously emerges increases discretion under broad circumstances. |
| Keywords: | Pluralistic Politics; Lobbying; Common Agency; Moral Hazard |
| JEL: | D82 D86 H10 |
| Date: | 2023–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:127952&r=cdm |