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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Piazolo, David |
| Abstract: | This paper theoretically investigates the strategic implications of varying reliability of bargaining partners under unanimous and non-unanimous voting. Three players (one proposer, two responders) bargain over the distribution of a pie. One responder has private information about his valuation of finding an agreement, implying signaling values that differ substantially between voting rules and are affected by the other responder’s reliability. Under unanimity rule, the responder with private information benefits from voting “no” because this signals that he requires a larger compensation in a future period. In contrast, under majority rule, voting “no” is unattractive due to the fear of being excluded from a future coalition. Under both voting rules, one responder becoming less reliable negatively affects the other responder’s willingness to vote “yes”, making efficient agreements increasingly difficult to achieve. The presence of unreliable parties can under majority rule lead to more parties being included in the winning coalition, as demonstrated by an extension of the model. |
| Keywords: | bargaining; majority; unanimity; unreliability; private information |
| Date: | 2025–01–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0756 |
| By: | Aleksandra Conevska; Can Mutlu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we address a longstanding puzzle over the functional form that better approximates voter's political utility. Though it has become the norm in the literature to represent the voters' political utility with concave loss functions, for decades scholars have underscored this assumption's potential shortcomings. Yet there exists little to no evidence to support one functional form assumption over another. We fill this gap by first identifying electoral settings where the different functional forms generate divergent predictions about voter behavior. Then, we assess which functional form better matches observed voter and abstention behavior using Cast Vote Record (CVR) data that captures the anonymized ballots of millions of voters in the 2020 U.S. general election. Our findings indicate that concave loss functions fail to predict voting and abstention behavior and it is the reverse S-shaped loss functions, such as the Gaussian function, that better match the observed voter behavior. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2501.03196 |
| By: | Ernesto Dal Bó; Claudio Ferraz; Frederico Finan; Pedro Pessoa |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of a program in Brazil that selects and trains new politicians, addressing three main challenges: selection bias from program screening, self-selection into candidacy, and the need to quantify the contributions of both selection and training in a holistic evaluation. Our findings show that the program raised political entry by doubling candidacy rates and increasing electoral success by 69%. However, much of the overall effect was driven by screening, which accounted for 30% of the increase in candidacy and 43% of the increase in election rates, while also making the candidate pool more diverse, competent, and committed to democratic values. Renewing the political class involves trade-offs, as some traits favored by the program did not align with voter preferences, and also reduced the descriptive representation of low-income individuals. |
| JEL: | D72 P0 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33251 |
| By: | Emilia Brito Rebolledo; Jesse Bruhn; Thea How Choon; E. Anna Weber |
| Abstract: | How does gender composition influence individual and group behavior? To study this question empirically, we assembled a new, national sample of United States city council elections and digitized information from the minutes of over 40, 000 city-council meetings. We find that replacing a male councilor with a female councilor results in a 25p.p. increase in the share of motions proposed by women. This is despite causing only a 20p.p. increase in the council female share. The discrepancy is driven, in part, by behavioral changes similar to those documented in laboratory-based studies of gender composition. When a lone woman is joined by a female colleague, she participates more actively by proposing more motions. The apparent changes in behavior do not translate into clear differences in spending. The null finding on spending is not driven by strategic voting; however, preference alignment on local policy issues between men and women appears to play an important role. Taken together, our results both highlight the importance of nominal representation for cultivating substantive participation by women in high-stakes decision making bodies; and also provide evidence in support of the external validity of a large body of laboratory-based work on the consequences of group gender composition. |
| JEL: | C9 H7 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33223 |
| By: | Christoph Feldhaus; Lukas Reinhardt; Matthias Sutter |
| Abstract: | In a democracy, it is essential that citizens accept rules and laws, regardless of which party is in power. We study why citizens in polarized societies resist rules implemented by political opponents. This may be due to the rules’ specific content, but also because of a general preference against being restricted by political opponents. We develop a method to measure the latter channel. In our experiment with almost 1, 300 supporters and opponents of Donald Trump, we show that polarization undermines rule-following behaviour significantly, independent of the rules’ content. Subjects perceive the intentions behind (identical) rules as much more malevolent if they were imposed by a political opponent rather than a political ally. |
| Keywords: | political polarization, social identity, outgroup, economic preferences, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D90 D91 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11485 |
| By: | Daryna Grechyna; Rhema Vaithianathan |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the welfare implications of children’s enfranchisement within a political economy framework that emphasizes the trade-offs in public policy when the electorate includes different age groups. Public spending is financed by tax revenues, meaning that higher spending on child-rearing results in lower pensions, and vice versa. We derive the political equilibrium under Markov strategies and compare welfare across various suffrage schemes and demographic groups. The franchise that maximizes welfare across demographic groups depends on the fertility rate in the economy. Policies chosen when all demographic groups have voting rights are Pareto-improving compared to those chosen under the standard voting rights system, which excludes children from the electorate, when the fertility rate is low, and Pareto-reducing when the fertility rate is high. This result is driven by the surplus or shortage of funds available to finance pensions, depending on the ratio of workers to retirees in the economy. Public investment in child care can change the fertility rate and shift the economy toward a new optimal franchise. |
| Keywords: | demeny voting, children’s enfranchisement, fertility, public policy, welfare |
| JEL: | H21 J13 D60 D72 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11553 |
| By: | Sirianne Dahlum; Torbjørn Hanson; Åshild Johnsen; Andreas Kotsadam; Alexander Wuttke; Åshild A. Johnsen |
| Abstract: | The increasing popularity of strongman rule in democratic societies underscores the need to explore how authoritarian regime preferences might spread socially. We assess the role of social influence on support for leaders with authoritarian inclinations through pre-registered field and survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces. The field experiment randomly assigned soldiers to different rooms during boot camp, so soldiers lived among peers with varying levels of openness to authoritarian rule. We found that many individuals adjusted their privately reported support for authoritarian rule to align more closely with their peers. Further survey-experimental evidence among soldiers and the general Norwegian population confirms that learning about others’ level of support for authoritarian rule changes both perceptions about the preferences of others’ and own attitudes. Our results suggest that support for authoritarian rule can have a social basis and could potentially spread through social contagion in established democracies. |
| JEL: | D72 P00 J01 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11490 |
| By: | Mikhail Chernov; Vadim Elenev; Dongho Song |
| Abstract: | We propose a novel time-series econometric framework to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes in real time by combining polling data, economic fundamentals, and political prediction market prices. Our model estimates the joint dynamics of voter preferences across states. Applying our approach to the 2024 Presidential Election, we find a two-factor structure driving the vast majority of the variation in voter preferences. We identify electorally similar state clusters without relying on historical data or demographic models of voter behavior. Our simulations quantify the correlations between state-level election outcomes. Failing to take the correlations into account can bias the forecasted win probability for a given candidate by more than 10 percentage points. We find Pennsylvania to be the most pivotal state in the 2024 election. Our results provide insights for election observers, candidates, and traders. |
| JEL: | C32 C53 D72 P0 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33339 |
| By: | Auriol, Emmanuelle; Dahmani-Scuitti, Anaïs |
| Abstract: | In a model featuring two regions—one affluent and the other impoverished—the allocation of public spending is examined under an initially centralized and autocratic political process. In a stable autocracy, the decision to implement decentralization reforms hinges on a tradeoff: while centralization enables the autocrat to extract higher rents, it also results in reduced productivity in the poor region. The autocrat opts for decentralization when the negative impact on productivity outweighs the benefits of rent extraction. Moreover, under the pressure of democratic movements and growing instability, an authoritarian regime may also pursue decentralization reforms to preserve its wealth from the decisions of the poor median voter. |
| Keywords: | Autocracy; Decentralization; Democratization |
| JEL: | D02 D72 D74 O57 P48 |
| Date: | 2025–01–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:130116 |
| By: | De, Parikshit; Sharma, Aditi |
| Abstract: | Restricting domain had always been an approach to find out strategy proof social choice function in a voting setup where the society would choose one alternative from the individual preferences. By restricting the domain to a single peaked domain, Moulin (1980) found strategy-proof non-dictatorial social choice functions however, Sato (2010) shows that there does not exist any strategy-proof non-dictatorial choice function on a circular domain. Further restricting the circular domain to a clockwise circular domain, here we attempt to find all non-dictatorial social choice functions that are strategy proof on a clockwise circular domain. Many well-known social choice functions like majority rule, plurality rule, Instant runoff, Condorcet winner turns out to be manipulable whereas we find Borda count rule is strategy proof on a such domain for any number of agents and alternatives. We have defined two new SCF pairwise universal winner (PUW) rule and pairwise winner using plurality (PWP) rule which shows interesting properties. Both PUW and PWP are based on pairwise competition between alternatives, but the way a pairwise winner is decided is quite different. We found for two agents, PUW is strategy proof on clockwise circular domain. And PWP satisfies the monotone property on the clockwise circular domain for any number of agents and alternatives. |
| Keywords: | Social Choice Theory, Strategy-proof, Dictatorial rule, Borda count rule, Majority rule, Clockwise-circular domain, Plurality rule |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2024–11–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122827 |