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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Rohit Ticku |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the financial gains derived from holding public office for independentlegislators in India. Given that party-affiliated legislators are legally prohibited from engagingin cross-voting or defection, I hypothesize that independent legislators can secure rents whentheir support becomes pivotal for government formation. Utilizing candidate asset disclosuresfrom Indian state elections spanning 2003 to 2012, I demonstrate that independent legislatorsamass wealth at a faster pace than their party-affiliated counterparts in states where thelargest party or coalition falls short of a majority. The point estimates suggest that, for eachadditional seat that the largest party or coalition falls short of a majority, an independentlegislator experiences an approximate 2% annual increase in their assets relative to a partyaffiliated legislator. The disproportionate gains are particularly prominent in movable assets, implying a potential quid-pro-quo involving cash payments. |
| Keywords: | Independent politicians, Government formation, Political rents, Asset growth |
| JEL: | D74 N35 N45 |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2023/55&r=cdm |
| By: | Bellodi, Luca (Bocconi University); Docquier, Frédéric (LISER); Iandolo, Stefano (University of Salerno); Morelli, Massimo (Bocconi University); Turati, Riccardo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of local exposure to populism on net population movements by citizenship status, gender, age and education level in the context of Italian municipalities. We present two research designs to estimate the causal effect of populist attitudes and politics. Initially, we use a combination of collective memory and trigger variables as an instrument for the variation in populist vote shares across national elections. Subsequently, we apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of electing a populist mayor on population movements. We establish three converging findings. First, the exposure to both populist attitudes and policies, as manifested by the vote share of populist parties in national election or the closeelection of a new populist mayor, reduces the attractiveness of municipalities, leading to larger population outflows. Second, the effect is particularly pronounced among young, female, and highly educated natives, who tend to relocate across Italian municipalities rather than internationally. Third, we do not find any effect on the foreign population. Our results highlight a foot-voting mechanism that may contribute to a political polarization in Italian municipalities. |
| Keywords: | migration, human capital, populism, Italian politics |
| JEL: | D72 F22 F52 J61 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16732&r=cdm |
| By: | Clinton Gubong Gassi (Université de Franche-Comté, CRESE, UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the challenge of incorporating a weighting system into the commit- tee selection process under scoring rules. Given a set of voters expressing their preferences on a set of candidates, the objective is to choose a fixed-size subset of candidates, called a committee, that optimally represents the voters’ preferences. The main idea of the paper is that, beyond the voter’s preferences, each committee of a given size may be associated with a weight vector based on a specific compatibility criterion such as communication, cooperation, connectivity, or diversity. This vector assigns weights to individual committee members, reflecting their ability to make the committee satisfactory with respect to the criterion under consideration. In order to integrate the weighting system into the committee selection process, we introduce the continuous weighted scoring function derived from any scoring function. This function is characterized by two crucial properties, namely linearity and independence of zero-weight members. We demonstrate how this continuous weighted scoring function facilitates a trade-off between the candidates’ performance and their compatibility skills. |
| Keywords: | Voting, committee selection, scoring functions, weight vector |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2024-04&r=cdm |
| By: | Alrababah, Ala; Beerli, Andreas; Hangartner, Dominik; Ward, Dalston |
| Abstract: | The main theories explaining electoral backlash against immigration give centrality to citizens' cultural, economic, and security concerns. We test these predictions in Switzerland, which opened its labor market to neighboring countries in the 2000s. Using a difference-in-differences design, we document that immigration to Swiss border municipalities increased substantially after the borders opened, followed by a more than six percentage point (29%) increase in support for anti-immigrant parties. However, we find no adverse effects on citizens' employment and wages nor on their subjective perceptions of economic, cultural, or security threats. Instead, we describe how far-right parties introduced novel threats to increase hostility toward immigrants. Our evidence demonstrates how elite rhetoric targeted border municipalities and had the greatest effects on voters vulnerable to political persuasion. Together, these findings emphasize the role that elites may play in driving anti-immigrant votes. |
| Date: | 2024–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:hgczq&r=cdm |
| By: | Mostapha Diss (Université de Franche-Comté, CRESE, UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France); Clinton Gabon Gassi (Université de Franche-Comté, CRESE, UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France); Eric Kamwa (Université des Antilles, LC2S, UMR CNRS 8053, Martinique, France) |
| Abstract: | We consider a model of multi-winner elections, where each voter expresses a linear preference over a finite set of alternatives. Based on voters’ preferences, the primary goal is to select a subset of admissible alternatives, forming what is referred to as a committee. We explore (weakly) separable committee scoring rules, the voting mechanisms that assess each alternative individually using a scoring vector and select the top k alternatives, where k represents the committee’s size. Furthermore, we operate under the assumption that alternatives are categorized based on specific attributes. Within each attribute category, there exists a targeted minimum number of alternatives that the selected committee should encompass, emphasizing the necessity for diversity. In this context, we assess the cost associated with imposing such a diversity constraint on the voting process. This assessment is conducted through two methodologies, referred to as the “price of diversity” and the “individual price of diversity”. We set the upper bounds for both prices across all (weakly) separable committee scoring rules. Additionally, we show how the maximum price of diver- sity can be used to discriminate between different voting rules in this context. Ultimately, we illustrate that concentrating on the candidates’ performance yields a more accurate estimation of the price of diversity compared to a focus on the enforced diversity constraint. |
| Keywords: | Group decisions and negotiations, voting, multiwinner elections, scoring rules, price of diversity |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2024-02&r=cdm |
| By: | Moens, Eline (Ghent University); De Pessemier, Dyllis (Ghent University); Baert, Stijn (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | Although unequal treatment of workers based on political affiliation is prohibited in many countries, it is conspicuously understudied in the discrimination literature. In this study, we set up a vignette experiment with genuine recruiters to provide more insight into the effect of political engagement in job applicants on the assessment of their resumes by these professionals. We find that, overall, recruiters view an applicant as less creative, open-minded, empathetic and emotionally sensitive when a political engagement is expressed. These stigma are greater for candidates with a right-wing nationalist commitment. Relatedly, these candidates are assessed worse in terms of overall hireability and perceived inclination or taste among employers, colleagues and customers to collaborate with them. They are, however, seen as somewhat more assertive. In contrast to research conducted in one- or two-party systems, we do not find interactions with the political preference of the recruiter herself/himself. Overall, the effect of mentioning a political engagement in a resume is more negative when the required education level of the vacancy is high. |
| Keywords: | hiring discrimination, political preference, vignette experiment |
| JEL: | D72 J21 J71 P16 C91 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16730&r=cdm |
| By: | Patty, John; Turner, Ian R (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Legislators can benefit from delegation to executive agencies, but they have limited tools to hold these agencies accountable. One key tool is 'power of the purse': control of the agency's appropriations. We present a theory that incorporates heterogeneous legislator preferences over bureaucratic activity, legislative budgetary control, and endogenous bureaucratic policy discretion to understand legislative incentives when appropriating funds to bureaucratic agencies. Our theory provides several insights: first, legislators' induced preferences over budgets are only partially determined by their policy preferences. Second, in some cases a legislator opposed to the direction that the agency will take policy nevertheless supports increased funding for that agency, which we refer to as the legislator facing cross-pressure. Finally, "strange bedfellows" coalitions emerge in which legislators with competing policy preferences may nonetheless agree on their most-desired budget level for the agency. |
| Date: | 2024–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:pnx2u&r=cdm |
| By: | Mekvabishvili, Rati |
| Abstract: | Many modern societies sustain large-scale cooperation among strangers and maintain the provision of public goods through well-functioning top-down formal institutions. However, it is important to understand the differences between weak and strong formal institutions in achieving two key goals in social dilemma situations: sustaining socially beneficial equilibria and fostering individual prosocial behavior. Additionally, we need to examine what happens to cooperation when the credibility of a formal institution is undermined and what occurs when it ceases to function. In this novel experiment of a repeated public goods game, we explore the effects of an exogenous centralized punishment mechanism with a low probability, which serves as a weak formal institution, and compare it with a strong formal institution. Our findings are encouraging, as they demonstrate that even under a weak formal institution, relatively high levels of cooperation can be sustained. However, irrespective of whether the punishment probability for free riders is low or high, once the punishment mechanism is removed, cooperation breaks down to a similarly low level. This suggests that regardless of the strength of the formal institution, there is an alike effect of crowding out an individual’s intrinsic motivation for cooperation. Therefore, the application of a centralized punishment mechanism as a policy tool to promote cooperation, regardless of its strength, appears to be a double-edged sword: socially beneficial outcome and intrinsically motivated cooperation hardly can be attained simultaneously |
| Keywords: | formal institutions, public good, centralized punishment, crowding out, cooperation |
| JEL: | C90 D02 H41 |
| Date: | 2023–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119659&r=cdm |