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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Anton Kolotilin (School of Economics, UNSW); Alexander Wolitzky (Department of Economics, MIT) |
| Abstract: | We study the problem of a partisan gerrymanderer who assigns voters to equipopulous districts to maximize his party’s expected seat share. The designer faces both aggregate, district-level uncertainty (how many votes his party will receive) and idiosyncratic, voter-level uncertainty (which voters will vote for his party). Segregate-pair districting, where weaker districts contain one type of voter, while stronger districts contain two, is optimal for the gerrymanderer. The optimal form of segregate-pair districting depends on the designer’s popularity and the relative amounts of aggregate and idiosyncratic uncertainty. When idiosyncratic uncertainty dominates, a designer with majority support pairs all voters, while a designer with minority support segregates opposing voters and pairs more favorable voters; these plans resemble uniform districting and “packing-and-cracking, ” respectively. When aggregate uncertainty dominates, the designer segregates moderate voters and pairs extreme voters; this “matching slices” plan has received some attention in the literature. Estimating the model using precinct-level returns from recent US House elections shows that, in practice, idiosyncratic uncertainty dominates. We discuss implications for redistricting reform, political polarization, and detecting gerrymandering. Methodologically, we exploit a formal connection between gerrymandering—partitioning voters into districts—and information design—partitioning states of the world into signals. |
| Keywords: | Gerrymandering, pack-and-crack, segregate-pair, information design |
| JEL: | C78 D72 D82 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2024-06 |
| By: | Camille Urvoy |
| Abstract: | What makes politicians respond to civil society organizations’ demands? I use new data on government transfers to French associations and exploit close elections to show that politicians grant more funds to ideologically close organizations when the local incumbent is a political ally and was elected by a small margin. The results are consistent with politicians and organizations exchanging financial support for electoral support. Organizations secure funding because of the votes they can deliver, not because of their campaign contributions; however the fact that transfers appear to be conditioned on support may undermine their ability to help hold politicians accountable. |
| Keywords: | civil society organizations, elections, distributive politics, clientelism |
| JEL: | D72 L31 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2024_601 |
| By: | Aytimur, Emre; Boukouras, Aris; Suen, Richard M. H. |
| Abstract: | We examine how the optimal degree of policy divergence between two policy platforms in an election is affected by two types of aggregate uncertainty: policy-related and candidate-specific. We show that when the candidate-specific uncertainty is sufficiently large, policy convergence becomes optimal. We also show that when these two types of uncertainty co-exist, only purely office-motivated parties result in policy convergence, in other words, any level of policy motivation of parties results in some policy divergence, making policy motivation undesirable when candidate-specific uncertainty is sufficiently large. |
| Keywords: | Voting; Policy Divergence; Polarisation |
| JEL: | D72 D80 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122279 |
| By: | Subhayu Bandyopadhyay; Devashish Mitra |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes and compares equilibrium immigration levels of some popular political economy models in the context of unequal capital holdings. We show that immigration rises (falls) with inequality in a limited (inclusive) democracy where only a small (large) fraction of the population has voting rights. Furthermore, we highlight the similarities between a campaign-contributions model and a partial-democracy model in terms of their predictions about immigration policy. In particular, we show that extension of voting rights in a partial democracy has qualitatively similar implications on immigration policy as reducing the relative weight on campaign contributions. |
| Keywords: | legal immigration policy; inequality in capital ownership; partial democracy; voter support for immigration; campaign contributions; lobbying |
| JEL: | F22 F66 J61 |
| Date: | 2024–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:98968 |
| By: | Koundouri, Phoebe; Papayiannis, Georgios I.; Petracou, Electra V.; Yannacopoulos, Athanasios N. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose a consensus group decision making scheme under model uncertainty consisting of a two-stage procedure and based on the concept of Fr´echet barycenter. The first stage is a clustering procedure in the metric space of opinions leading to homogeneous groups, whereas the second stage consists of a proposal most likely to be accepted by all groups. An evolutionary learning scheme of proposal updates leading to consensus is also proposed. The schemes are illustrated in examples motivated from environmental economics. |
| Keywords: | consensus group decision making, model uncertainty, environmental decision making, Fréchet barycenter |
| JEL: | A1 C0 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122006 |
| By: | Vasily Gusev (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Iakov Zhukov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates two approaches to determining the leader of a coalition partition: the individual and the collective. In the first approach, each coalition in the partition chooses a representative, and then the leader is chosen from among all the representatives. In the second approach, the leading coalition in the partition is chosen, and then the leader from among members of that coalition is chosen. The leader and the leading coalition are chosen with a certain probability, which is guided by the weight rule or the ranking rule. Both approaches can be encountered in contests, sports competitions, and political elections. The paper delivers results on the existence of Nash-stable partitions depending on the approach and the probability of determining the leader. Cases where the number of coalitions in the partition is fixed and arbitrary are studied. The existence of an equilibrium in weakly dominant strategies is proved for the collective approach and the weight rule, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for a Nash-stable partition to exist were found for the ranking rule. The sufficient conditions for a Nash-stable partition to exist were found for the individual approach and the corresponding probabilistic rules |
| Keywords: | coalitionformation, leaderproblem, Nashstability |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:268/ec/2024 |
| By: | Cruz Cortés, Efrén; Lee, John; Lehoucq, Emilio; Suschevskiy, Vsevolod |
| Abstract: | Zárate, Quezada-Llanes, and Armenta (2024) examine whether Hispanic and Anglo voters change voting behavior if a political candidate speaks to them in Spanish and whether it matters how proficient in Spanish the candidate sounds. They find that Hispanic support for the Anglo and Hispanic candidates is higher in the native-like Spanish condition compared with the English-only condition. Relative to the English condition, non-native Spanish does not increase support for the Anglo candidate, but it decreases support for the Hispanic candidate. They find mixed effects for the Anglo participants. We conducted computational and robustness reproductions. First, we successfully computationally reproduced all the main results. Second, we constrained the analysis to participants that passed the manipulation checks (this was not done by the authors). We find the same results hold. Notice we constrained ourselves to study 1, which is based on data by Prolific. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:165 |
| By: | Robert J. Gordon |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of economic indicators on the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, Presidential approval ratings, and Presidential election outcomes since 1956. How closely do the indicators predict sentiment, how well does sentiment predict approval, and what role does approval have in explaining election outcomes measured by electoral votes? How much of the variance of approval ratings depends on non-economic factors like the “honeymoon effect”? Is there a role for economic indicators in explaining election outcomes once the contribution of approval ratings is taken into account? Regression equations provide answers to these questions and allow new interpretations of political history. Equation residuals and the contributions of specific variables are graphically displayed, providing insights into time intervals when sentiment was above or below the prediction of economic indicators, when approval differed from its usual relation with sentiment and the indicators, and when and why the electoral vote totals in each election since 1956 exceeded or fell short of the predictions of the econometric equations. |
| JEL: | P0 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33068 |