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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Alexandra Baier; Natalie Struwe |
| Abstract: | We study cooperation in an environment where public good providers face the decision to accept a newcomer to their group. A bottom-up process for accepting new members to social groups reveals individual preferences to include newcomers. Alternatively, inclusion can be decided in a top-down process by a third party. We present data from an online public good experiment, varying first whether inclusion of a newcomer is exogenously imposed through a random draw or endogenously decided on by the group members through a majority voting rule. Secondly, we target uncertainty about the behavior of the newcomer by providing feedback information on previous prosocial behavior from a dictator-to-charity task of the newcomer. The results demonstrate a high general willingness to include newcomers, with the voting process resulting in significantly higher inclusion rates compared to the exogenous process. The prosocial information neither affects aggregate inclusion nor aggregate cooperation outcomes significantly. Providing information on prior prosocialty, however, constitutes a significant determinant for individual behavior: it directly affects the likelihood of group members to vote for inclusion, as well as influencing expectations on future cooperativeness of the newcomer. |
| Keywords: | endogenous group formation, inclusion, public good, charitable giving, cooperation |
| JEL: | C72 C92 D64 H41 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2024-08 |
| By: | Luiz Bines (Department of Economics, PUC-Rio); Juliano Assuncao (Department of Economics, PUC-Rio); Ricardo Dahis (Department of Economics, Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of ”Red Alerts”, siren warnings of rocket threats, on voting behavior in Israel, focusing on the Likud party during the 2013 and 2015 elections. Using a novel dataset on Red Alert timing and location, we apply a difference-in-differences approach to compare voting patterns in areas newly exposed to Gaza’s rocket range in 2014. Our analysis shows that Red Alerts on the days immediately before the election boosted Likud’s vote share by 2.5 p.p., or 15% of the average, while earlier alerts had no significant effect, highlighting the impact of threat salience on electoral outcomes. This research advances our understanding of how security threats influence political behavior |
| Keywords: | terrorism, salience, issue ownership. |
| JEL: | F5 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2024-16 |
| By: | Sarah Spycher |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of domestic elections and political polarisation in shaping international environmental agreements and how electoral dynamics may explain the limited success of current climate cooperation. I focus on two key factors: the impact of domestic electoral pressure on international policy decisions and the mismatch between short election cycles and long-term treaty commitments. Using a 4-stage game modelling a bilateral environmental agreement, I analyse how incumbents strategically balance policy preferences with reelection prospects. Results show that while a green incumbent is often forced to temper their ambitions, a brown incumbent faces fewer electoral constraints, explaining why stringent policies are harder to achieve. Nonetheless, electoral pressure can moderate policies, producing outcomes more aligned with the preferences of the median voter. Finally, I discuss how political polarisation, particularly in two party systems, adds complexity to international cooperation on global public goods. |
| JEL: | Q58 C72 D62 H41 P16 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1196 |
| By: | Bruno Caprettini (Universität St. Gallen - School of Economics and Political Sciences Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economic Research); Lorenzo Casaburi (Universität Zürich - Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakutält); Miriam Venturini (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside) |
| Abstract: | Governments often implement large-scale redistribution policies to gain enduring political support. However, little is known on whether such policies generate sizable gains, whether these gains are persistent, and why. We study the political consequences of a major land reform in Italy. A panel spatial regression discontinuity design shows that the reform generated large electoral gains for the incumbent Christian Democratic party. The electoral effects persist over four decades. We explore several channels and find that clientelist brokering and patronage are plausible mechanisms for this persistence. |
| Keywords: | redistribution, voting, clientelism, land reform, Italy |
| JEL: | P16 N44 Q15 D72 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucr:wpaper:202408 |
| By: | Raúl Duarte; Frederico Finan; Horacio Larreguy; Laura Schechter |
| Abstract: | Politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes throughout much of the developing world. We investigate how social networks facilitate these vote-buying exchanges. Our conceptual framework suggests brokers should be particularly well-placed within the network to learn about non-copartisans’ reciprocity in order to target transfers effectively. As a result, parties should recruit brokers who are central among non-copartisans. We combine village network data from brokers and citizens with broker reports of vote buying, allowing us to use broker and citizen fixed effects. We show that networks diffuse information about citizens to brokers who leverage it to target transfers. In particular, among those citizens who are not registered to their party, brokers target reciprocal citizens about whom they can learn more through their network, and these citizens are more likely to support the brokers’ party. Moreover, recruited brokers are significantly more central than other citizens among non-copartisans, but not among copartisans. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying, broker recruitment, and ultimately for political outcomes. |
| Keywords: | vote buying, brokers, social networks |
| JEL: | D72 O12 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11349 |
| By: | Dhammika Dharmapala |
| Abstract: | A substantial literature studies franchise extension, focusing primarily on class-based – rather than race-based – voting restrictions. This paper constructs and analyzes a novel dataset that codes the presence of race-based restrictions on voting in 131 jurisdictions over 1730-2000 (consisting primarily of English-speaking subnational jurisdictions with substantial power to determine their electoral law). It documents extensive variation in these restrictions over time and across jurisdictions. To explain this variation, the paper uses a framework that emphasizes the distinction between centralized imperial control versus the empowerment of local European settlers. A difference-in-difference analysis of the impact of US independence (using “Loyalist” British colonies in the Americas as a control group) suggests a substantial positive effect of US independence on the probability of a racially restrictive franchise. More generally, a stacked event study analysis implies that the independence of colonies of settlement (and, to a lesser extent, other forms of settler empowerment) had a substantial positive effect on the probability of a racially restrictive franchise. These results are robust to controlling for the existence and abolition of property qualifications for voting. They are consistent with a framework in which an imperial government is less subject to capture by local settler elites, and thus more likely to promote franchise extension than is an empowered local settler-dominated government. |
| Keywords: | voting, franchise extension, race, discrimination |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11347 |