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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Antoinette Baujard (Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2, emlyon business school, GATE, 42023, Lyon, France); Roberto Brunetti (Université Lumière Lyon 2, CNRS, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, emlyon business school, GATE, 69007, Lyon, France, and Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM-UMR6211, F-35000 Rennes, France); Isabelle Lebon (Normandie Univ., CREM, UMR CNRS 6211, Caen, France and TEPP-CNRS, Caen, France); Simone Marsilio (Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano) |
| Abstract: | If individuals are to be empowered in their selection or use of a voting rule, it is necessary that they understand it. This paper analyzes people’s understanding of two voting rules: evaluative voting and majority judgment. We first distinguish three components of understanding in this context: how to fill in the ballot; how votes are aggregated; and how to vote strategically. To measure each component, we draw on results from a lab experiment on incentivized voting where participants are exogenously assigned single-peaked preferences and answer comprehension questions on the rules employed. We find that most participants understand how to fill in the ballot and how votes are aggregated; however, participants’ understanding of vote aggregation under majority judgment is lower and more heterogeneous. While some participants correctly understand its aggregation property, a sizable group fails to grasp it. We also observe no difference in voting behavior between evaluative voting and majority judgment: the data confirm the theoretical prediction that under evaluative voting there will be a greater incidence of strategic voting through the use of extreme grades, but contradict the prediction that under majority judgment voters will vote more sincerely. Finally, we find that with majority judgment, the better voters understand how votes are aggregated, the more they make use of extreme grades. |
| Keywords: | voting rules; understanding; evaluative voting; majority judgment; laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | A13 C92 D71 D72 O35 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2408 |
| By: | P. Battiston; M. Magnani; D. Paolini; L. Rossi |
| Abstract: | We empirically analyze the strategic proofness of a positional voting system. We exploit the setting of the Eurovision Song Contest, where each country participates both as a candidate — with an artist and a song — and with a set of voters, — including jury members, and the popular vote – and where voters attribute points according to a modified version of the Borda rule. Despite voters being forbidden from voting their country’s song, we find evidence of strategic behavior in the competition final, particularly among industry experts (jury members), who tend to attribute lower votes to close competitors of their country’s candidate. By matching Eurovision voting data to Spotify data on success and musical featuresof each competing song, we show that this behaviour is not explained by intrinsic quality or commercial success of individual songs, but is rather driven by strategic considerations. Strategic voting potentially aspects any settings where voters have an interest in specific candidates being elected, a relevant example being the election of members of international bodies: our analysis provides empirical evidence that forbidding votes for own candidates is not enough to neutralize strategic behavior. |
| Keywords: | Strategical Voting, Positional Voting, Eurovision Song Contest |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2024-ep02 |
| By: | Jésus Fernández-Villaverde; Carlos Sanz; Jesús Fernández-Villaverde |
| Abstract: | Due to a last-minute fight among the candidates, Vox, a party at the right end of the Spanish political spectrum, could not run in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a relatively representative electoral constituency, in the general election of July 23, 2023. Since this fight was a power struggle within Vox unrelated to any fundamental in the constituency or ideological differences among the candidates, we can exploit this event as a quasi-natural experiment to measure the effects of new parties on electoral outcomes. Using three different but complementary research designs (matching, synthetic controls, and a triple-difference analysis), we get to the same main result: Vox’s presence significantly increases votes for the right as a whole. The increase in votes for the right caused by Vox’s presence is particularly strong in areas with high unemployment. The presence of Vox also reduces protest votes but, on the other hand, votes for the left are unaffected. |
| Keywords: | new parties, quasi-natural experiments, electoral outcomes |
| JEL: | D72 N30 N40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11179 |
| By: | Gay, Victor; Dazey, Margot |
| Abstract: | How is support for right-wing populist parties affected by exposure to Muslim visibility? Using an original database on French mosques, this article analyzes the relationship between the presence of mosques and support for the Front National at the polling station level in the late 2000s. It finds that the propensity to vote for the Front National increases in polling stations up to intermediate distances from mosques and then decreases, suggesting a spatial mechanism known as the halo effect. The analysis also shows that larger mosques and those with minarets are associated with an accentuated halo effect, suggesting the importance of the salience of minority groups rather than their relative size in influencing political behavior. |
| Keywords: | Radical right; mosque; immigration; France; halo effect |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:129453 |
| By: | Jeremias Lenzi |
| Abstract: | Voting mechanisms are widely accepted and used methods for decentralized decision-making. Ensuring the acceptance of the voting mechanism's outcome is a crucial characteristic of robust voting systems. Consider this scenario: A group of individuals wants to choose an option from a set of alternatives without requiring an identification or proof-of-personhood system. Moreover, they want to implement utilitarianism as their selection criteria. In such a case, players could submit votes multiple times using dummy accounts, commonly known as a Sybil attack (SA), which presents a challenge for decentralized organizations. Is there a voting mechanism that always prevents players from benefiting by casting votes multiple times (SA-proof) while also selecting the alternative that maximizes the added valuations of all players (efficient)? One-person-one-vote is neither SA-proof nor efficient. Coin voting is SA-proof but not efficient. Quadratic voting is efficient but not SA-proof. This study uses Bayesian mechanism design to propose a solution. The mechanism's structure is as follows: Players make wealth deposits to indicate the strength of their preference for each alternative. Each player then receives an amount based on their deposit and the voting outcome. The proposed mechanism relies on two main concepts: 1) Transfers are influenced by the outcome in a way that each player's optimal action depends only on individual preferences and the number of alternatives; 2) A player who votes through multiple accounts slightly reduces the expected utility of all players more than the individual benefit gained. This study demonstrates that if players are risk-neutral and each player has private information about their preferences and beliefs, then the mechanism is SA-proof and efficient. This research provides new insights into the design of more robust decentralized decision-making mechanisms. |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2407.01844 |
| By: | Eleonora Brandimarti; Giacomo De Giorgi; Jeremy Laurent-Lucchetti |
| Abstract: | There is a tight connection between credit access and voting. We show that uncertainty in access to credit pushes voters toward more conservative candidates in US elections. Using a 1% sample of the US population with valid credit reports, we relate access to credit to voting outcomes in all county-by-congressional districts over the period 2004-2016. Specifically, we construct exogenous measures of uncertainty to credit access, i.e. credit score values around which individual total credit amount jumps the most (e.g. around which uncertainty on access to credit is the highest). We then show that a 10pp increase in the share of marginal voters located just around these thresholds increases republican votes by 2.7pp, and reduces that of democrats by 2.6pp. Furthermore, winning candidates in more uncertain constituencies tend to follow a more conservative rhetoric. |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2407.06808 |
| By: | Roxana Guti\'errez-Romero; Nayely Iturbe |
| Abstract: | Mexico has experienced a notable surge in assassinations of political candidates and mayors. This article argues that these killings are largely driven by organized crime, aiming to influence candidate selection, control local governments for rent-seeking, and retaliate against government crackdowns. Using a new dataset of political assassinations in Mexico from 2000 to 2021 and instrumental variables, we address endogeneity concerns in the location and timing of government crackdowns. Our instruments include historical Chinese immigration patterns linked to opium cultivation in Mexico, local corn prices, and U.S. illicit drug prices. The findings reveal that candidates in municipalities near oil pipelines face an increased risk of assassination due to drug trafficking organizations expanding into oil theft, particularly during elections and fuel price hikes. Government arrests or killings of organized crime members trigger retaliatory violence, further endangering incumbent mayors. This political violence has a negligible impact on voter turnout, as it targets politicians rather than voters. However, voter turnout increases in areas where authorities disrupt drug smuggling, raising the chances of the local party being re-elected. These results offer new insights into how criminal groups attempt to capture local governments and the implications for democracy under criminal governance. |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2407.06733 |
| By: | Nunnari, Salvatore (Bocconi University); Proto, Eugenio (University of Glasgow); Rustichini, Aldo (University of Minnesota) |
| Abstract: | Rational choice theories assume that voters accurately assess the outcomes of policies. However, many important policies—such as regulating prices and introducing Pigouvian taxation—yield outcomes through indirect or equilibrium effects that may differ from their direct effects. Citizens may underestimate these effects, leading to a demand for bad policy, that is, opposition to reforms that would increase welfare or support for reforms that would decrease it. This appreciation might be linked to cognitive functions, raising important research questions: Do cognitive abilities influence how individuals form preferences regarding policies, especially untried reforms? If so, what is the underlying mechanism? We use a simple theoretical framework and an experiment to show that enhanced cognitive abilities may lead to better policy choices. Moreover, we emphasize the crucial role of beliefs about other citizens' cognitive abilities. These findings have important policy implications as they suggest that educational programs developing cognitive skills or interventions increasing trust in others' understanding could improve the quality of democratic decision-making in our societies. |
| Keywords: | voting, policy reform, political failure, cognition, experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D72 D91 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17112 |
| By: | Bernhardt, Dan (University of Illinois & University of Warwick); Shaoting Pi (Iowa State University) |
| Abstract: | Hedge fund activists often aim to convince other shareholders to vote for a particular corporate policy, while majority shareholders recognize that activist recommendations serve their own interests, not necessarily maximizing firm value. We show how an activist can increase the likelihood of a favorable vote by delegating the tasks of acquiring information and making recommendations to another activist. This choice balances motivating the delegated activist to acquire costly information against ensuring shareholders trust the recommendation. We characterize how the hedge fund activist’s bias affects the delegation bias, information acquisition, recommendation and shareholder voting decisions, and firm value. JEL Codes: D72 ; G23 ; G34 ; D83 ; K22 |
| Keywords: | Hedge Fund Activism ; Delegation ; Information Acquisition ; Recommendations ; Shareholder Voting |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wqapec:22 |
| By: | Marco Battaglini; Valerio Leone Sciabolazza; Mengwei Lin; Eleonora Patacchini |
| Abstract: | It has long been observed that there is little money in U.S. politics compared to the stakes. But what if contributions are not fully observable or non-monetary in nature and thus not easily quantifiable? We study this question with a new data set on the top 1000 donors in U.S. congressional races. Since top donors do not randomly support candidates, we propose an identification strategy based on information about top donors' deaths and the observed variations in candidates' performance after these events. The death of a top donor significantly decreases a candidate's chances of being elected in the current and future election cycles. Moreover, it affects the legislative activities of elected candidates. These effects do not depend on top donors' monetary contributions to a candidate but on their prominence and their total contributions during the election campaign. |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32649 |
| By: | Laura E. Boudreau; Rocco Macchiavello; Virginia Minni; Mari Tanaka |
| Abstract: | Social movements are catalysts for crucial institutional changes. To succeed, they must coordinate members’ views (consensus building) and actions (mobilization). We study union leaders within Myanmar’s burgeoning labor movement. Union leaders are positively selected on both personality traits that enable them to influence others and ability but earn lower wages. In group discussions about workers’ views on an upcoming national minimum wage negotiation, randomly embedded leaders build consensus around the union’s preferred policy. In an experiment that mimics individual decision-making in a collective action set-up, leaders increase mobilization through coordination. Leaders empower social movements by building consensus that encourages mobilization. |
| JEL: | C93 D23 D70 J51 J52 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32619 |