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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Gabriele Gratton; Barton E. Lee |
| Abstract: | We study a model of popular demand for anti-elite populist reforms that drain the swamp: replace experienced public servants with novices that will only acquire experience with time. Voters benefit from experienced public servants because they are more effective at delivering public goods and more competent at detecting emergency threats. However, public servants’ policy preferences do not always align with those of voters. This tradeoff produces two key forces in our model: public servants’ incompetence spurs disagreement between them and voters, and their effectiveness grants them more power to dictate policy. Both of these effects fuel mistrust between voters and public servants, sometimes inducing voters to drain the swamp in cycles of anti-elite populism. We study which factors can sustain a responsive democracy or induce a technocracy. When instead populism arises, we discuss which reforms may reduce the frequency of populist cycles, including recruiting of public servants and isolating them from politics. Our results support the view that a more inclusive and representative bureaucracy protects against anti-elite populism. We provide empirical evidence that lack of trust in public servants is a key force behind support for anti-elite populist parties and argue that our model helps explain the rise of anti-elite populism in large robust democracies. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp25244 |
| By: | Aleksandra Conevska; Can Mutlu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we address a longstanding puzzle over the functional form that better approximates voter utility from political choices. Though it has become the norm in the literature to represent voter 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. We then 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 observed voter behavior. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2025-02 |
| By: | Francesco Ferlenga; Stephanie Kang |
| Abstract: | We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social integration by exploiting Romania’s accession to the EU in 2007, which granted municipal voting and residency rights to Romanian immigrants in Italy. Using an event-study analysis at the municipality level, we find three key results. First, enfranchisement increased Romanians’ turnout and the likelihood of electing Romanian-born councilors in municipal elections, particularly in competitive races. An instrumented difference-in-differences strategy shows that this effect is driven by the enfranchisement of preexisting immigrants, not by new arrivals. Second, the rate of consent to organ donation among Romanian immigrants increased after 2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends beyond political representation to prosocial behavior. However, we also find that the presence of immigrants still increases the probability of right-leaning party victories and municipal spending on public security, while reducing spending on social programs. This suggests that native backlash to immigrant presence outweighs the political influence of newly enfranchised immigrant communities in shaping local electoral outcomes. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2025-04 |
| By: | Blumenthal, Benjamin; Nunnari, Salvatore |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we introduce reciprocity concerns in a political agency model with symmetric learning about politicians’ ability and moral hazard. Voters with reciprocity concerns are both prospective—that is, seek to select competent politicians—and retrospective—that is, reward fair actions and punish unfair ones. We focus on how electoral incentives induce politicians to exert effort (electoral control) and how voters remove incompetent politicians (electoral screening). We show that taking voters’ reciprocity concerns into account has important normative implications and can overturn results from standard models that neglect them: increasing transparency about the incumbent’s effort improves electoral control if and only if voters have sufficiently strong reciprocity concerns; increasing benefits from office improves electoral control if and only if voters have sufficiently low reciprocity concerns. Moreover, we show that reciprocity concerns can affect electoral screening, by affecting the competence threshold incumbents must clear to ensure reelection, generating incumbency advantages or disadvantages. |
| Date: | 2025–06–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9mv2e_v1 |
| By: | Anna Laura Baraldi; Claudia Cantabene; Alessandro De Iudicibus; Giovanni Fosco; Erasmo Papagni |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how natural disasters shape electoral preferences by analyzing the impact of earthquakes in Italy between 1990 and 2019. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design, we estimate that affected municipalities are more likely to elect female, more educated, and older city councilors. Similar shifts occur for mayors. These effects persist across election cycles and are robust to alternative specifications. We rule out competing explanations such as changes in turnout or candidate supply. The findings suggest that crises push voters to favor politicians perceived as more competent, experienced, and prosocial. |
| Keywords: | Natural disasters; Electoral behavior; Local elections; Political seÂlection; Gender and representation; Earthquakes; Difference-in-Differences; Voter preferences |
| JEL: | D72 H84 J16 C23 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–06–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eei:rpaper:eeri_rp_2025_06 |
| By: | Belmonte, Alessandro; Ticchi, Davide; Ubaldi, Michele |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether affirmative action policies towards the outsider group may foster a backlash by the insider one. We exploit the unique historical context provided by the legacy of apartheid in democratic South Africa. We found that the completion of the affirmative action legislation increases the support for far-right parties in national elections by 0.2% to 0.3% on average. We documented that this effect is stronger in areas located closer to the territories of the former homelands. We also found that affirmative action changed the voting intentions of the individuals. This effect is primarily driven by increased self-perceived economic insecurity. Finally, we did not find evidence of an effect of the legislation on increased interethnic violence. |
| Keywords: | Affirmative action, ethnic inequality, labor markets, South Africa, voting behavior |
| JEL: | D72 J15 J78 K31 N37 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1626 |
| By: | Gianluigi Conzo; Pierluigi Conzo |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the unintended effects of a sudden media shift from pandemic health-crisis coverage to the Russo-Ukrainian war. Using a dynamic Difference-in-Differences, we first examine how increased media focus on the war impacted contagion across Italian municipalities, with proximity to U.S. military bases serving as our treatment and proxy for heightened fear. Our findings reveal a temporary spike in infections, particularly in areas closer to bases, driven by increased mobility and a rise in "bunker" Google searches. Secondly, we show that politicians, especially from right-wing parties, gained electoral advantages in subsequent unexpected elections by leveraging war-related fears at the onset of the conflict. Voters in districts near bases responded more to the emotional tone of war-related messaging than its volume, underscoring fear’s influence on political outcomes. In contrast, left-wing parties benefited from the war’s media prominence, as their supporters responded more to issue salience than to emotional tone. |
| Keywords: | Media attention, Issue salience, Health outcomes, Electoral outcomes, Political communication, COVID-19, Russo-Ukrainian War, Fear of war. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:743 |
| By: | Yukihiko Funaki (Waseda University) |
| Abstract: | Cooperative game theory addresses two problems: coalition formation and payoff distribution. We hypothesize that the existence of the core, which is a fundamental concept in cooperative game theory, affects coalition formation, and we examine this hypothesis through a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, three subjects in a group bargain with each other on both the coalition formation and the payoff distribution simultaneously. The bargaining protocol is unstructured, i.e., similar to a real bargaining situation. As a result, we obtain the following findings. First, the existence of a core strongly induces the formation of the grand coalition. Second, resulting allocations are frequently in the core when it exists and are at least in the equal division core, which is an extension of the core. Finally, resulting allocations that are outside of the equal division core mostly arise due to ignorance of domination via coalition BC, which is the lowest-value two-person coalition. |
| Keywords: | laboratory experiment, unstructured bargaining, cooperative games, the core, communication |
| JEL: | C71 C91 C92 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wap:wpaper:2515 |
| By: | Marwil J. Davila-Fernandez; Christian R. Proano; Serena Sordi |
| Abstract: | Drawing on the political science literature, we develop a heterogeneous agents macro model that differentiates between left- and right-wing voting preferences in two political dimensions: the economic-distributive (ED) and the socio-cultural (SC) in particular regarding climate change. The model is compatible with the emergence of "ED-left/SC-left", "ED-left/SC-right", "ED-right/SC-left", and "ED-right/SC-right" coalitions, each associated with a tax rate on the skill wage premium and on carbon emissions. Human capital accumulation regarding results in a wage differential that influences production and feedback on inequality. Through induced technical change, taxing emissions impacts the development of carbon-neutral production techniques, affecting output and ultimately feeding political attitudes. We study analytically and through numerical simulations the conditions resulting in the coexistence of multiple stable equilibria and the possible implications for carbon emissions. Three results are worth highlighting. First, when income inequality, captured by the skill premium, is the primary motivation to become more educated, left-wing ED coalitions generate higher inequality than their right-wing counterpart. Second, it is shown that the consensus required to implement a carbon tax is only the first part of the problem. Absolute decoupling requires a sufficiently strong response from technology favouring carbon-neutral production techniques. Finally, our model suggests that the SC dimension matters most under medium levels of inequality. When inequality is very high, as in the pre-war period, ED dominates the debate, and there is a right-wing SC consensus. As inequality fell during the 1950s and 1960s, socio-cultural aspects gained importance. This change led to a situation where "ED-left/SC-left", "ED-left/SC-right", "ED-right/SC-left", and "ED-right/SC-right" stable coalitions became possible, creating a disconnect between education and left-wing support. |
| Keywords: | political cleavages, climate change, inequality, human capital, carbon tax |
| JEL: | C62 D72 Q01 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2025-37 |