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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Frattini, Federico Fabio |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how concurrent national and local elections affect the local political participation and competition. Leveraging a quasi-experimental framework provided by Italy’s staggered electoral timing, the paper employs a difference-in-differences design. Estimates reveal that municipalities holding concurrent elections exhibit lower levels of local participation and competition. Moreover, the concurrent election increases participation by candidates with nationally-established parties, while decreases participation with independent parties. This further translates into a higher votes share for nationally-established parties and a consequent higher probability of election. Elected mayors tend to have lower education and experience in office, while they are more likely to be from the municipality they were elected in. Further, elected mayors are able to attract more intergovernmental transfers, without substantially affecting local spending patterns. |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Political Economy |
| Date: | 2025–07–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:359333 |
| By: | Cuñat, Vicente; Lu, Yiqing; Wu, Hong |
| Abstract: | We study how managers react to shareholder empowerment that makes votes on shareholder proposals binding. We empirically exploit staggered legislative changes that introduce such empowerment for proposals regarding majority voting in director elections. We find that managers become more responsive to shareholder requirements by initiating majority voting through either management proposals or governance guidelines. This early action crowds out shareholder proposals. Further results suggest compromised implementation: Managers adopt provisions that give them greater control over the channel of implementation and allow them to retain directors who fail in elections. Our results suggest that managers retain substantial discretion to modulate shareholder requirements. This article was partially completed when Wu was at Fudan University. Any errors are attributable solely to the authors. |
| Keywords: | corporate Governance; majority voting; shareholder activism; shareholder empowerment |
| JEL: | J50 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2025–03–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127552 |
| By: | Kamei, Kenju; Sharma, Smriti; Walker, Matthew |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first experimental study on how higher-order punishment affects third-party sanction enforcement in the presence of multiple third parties. The design varies across treatments the number of third parties witnessing a norm violation and the opportunities available for third parties to costly punish each other after observing their peers’ enforcement actions. To test generalizability of higher-order enforcement effects, the experiment is conducted across two contrasting societies – India and the United Kingdom – using a prisoner’s dilemma game. These societies are selected for their positions at opposite ends of the tight-loose ancestral kinship spectrum. In both societies, third parties punish defectors who exploit their paired cooperators more strongly than any other person, consistent with prior research. However, punitive patterns differ. In the UK, third parties punish defectors less frequently and less strongly when other third parties are present. However, when higher-order punishments are available among third parties, their failure to punish defectors and acts of anti-social punishment invite strong higher-order punishment from their peers, which encourages their pro-social first-order punishments and makes mutual cooperation a Nash equilibrium outcome in the primary cooperation dilemma. However, in India, overall punishment levels are lower, group size and incentive structure changes have no discernible effects, and higher-order punishments are not better disciplined. These findings support a model of norm conformity for the UK and do not contradict such a model for India. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; Cross-societal variation; Public Goods; Third-party punishment; Higher-order |
| JEL: | C92 D01 H41 |
| Date: | 2025–04–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125206 |
| By: | Gaëtan Fournier (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Alberto Grillo (AMU - Aix Marseille Université, AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Yevgeny Tsodikovich (Bar-Ilan University [Israël], AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We study candidates' position adjustments in response to information about voters' preferences. Repositioning allows candidates to move closer to the median voter, but it incurs financial and electoral costs. In a subgame-perfect equilibrium, candidates diverge from the center ex ante if the costs of adjustment are sufficiently large. This allows them to increase the chances of a costless victory when the information is strongly in their favor. Our theory highlights a dynamic of moderation during the campaign stage in competitive elections, as well as a prominent role for minor adjustments made preemptively by the favored candidate. JEL Classification: C72, D72, D82 Model. We enrich the Downs-Hotelling framework by introducing an information shock, creating a two-stage game. The shock reveals the location of the median voter. This captures the idea that voters' aggregate preferences fluctuate over time and that their current leanings are disclosed during the electoral cam-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
| Keywords: | flip-flop, imperfect information, spatial voting, re-positioning |
| Date: | 2025–06–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05105112 |
| By: | Geissler, Dominique; Maarouf, Abdurahman; Bär, Dominik; Pröllochs, Nicolas; Feuerriegel, Stefan |
| Abstract: | Aggarwal et al. (2023) analyze the effects of an 8-month-long advertising program on voter turnout in the 2020 US presidential election. Therein, 2 million voters were exposed to pro-Biden and anti-Trump advertisements on social media in five battleground states. The study finds no average treatment effect on voter turnout but differential effects when modeling by Trump support: Biden supporters are 0.4 percentage points more likely to vote while Trump supporters are 0.3 percentage points less likely to vote (t = −2.09 with p-value |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:237 |
| By: | Thomas Buser (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | I analyze Dutch survey data that contains rich information on political preferences, personality traits, and socioeconomic background. I show that voting and political opinions are better predicted by personality and economic preferences than by a rich set of socioeconomic characteristics. Personality differences also explain large parts of the gender and education gaps in voting and ideology. The detailed survey data and large number of parties represented in Dutch parliament allow analysis beyond a simple left-right framework. Personality differences are particularly predictive of support for populist right-wing parties and of attitudes towards social issues, including immigration, climate change and European integration. |
| JEL: | D72 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–05–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20250035 |
| By: | Daniela Di Cagno; Werner Güth; Francesca Marazzi; Luca Panaccione |
| Abstract: | We analyze a public goods game with linearly increasing marginal returns to contributions, leading to a non-monotonic group payoff. By allowing the incentive to freeride to persist at all contribution levels, we preserve the usual social dilemma of voluntary public goods provision. We compare two conditions in which both let participants face the voluntary contribution task over a finite number of rounds: one implements it as a static game (Baseline condition), and the other implements it as a dynamic game with four successive stages of simultaneous contribution choices within each round (Milestone condition). Our data show that cooperation in the Baseline condition is rare and mostly limited to the first few rounds. The evidence for the Milestone condition is much more encouraging: contributions beyond suffering are substantial and fairly stable across rounds, although full contributions remain rare. This evidence suggests that the Milestone protocol is a promising institutional device for enhancing voluntary cooperation. |
| Keywords: | experiments, public goods, increasing marginal incentives to contribute, freeriding |
| JEL: | C72 C92 H41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11988 |
| By: | Silvia Vannutelli |
| Abstract: | Stimulus transfers are widely used during economic downturns, yet they are often poorly targeted from an economic perspective. I show that political incentives might help explain this discrepancy. I study one of the largest stimulus tax credits in Italy which excluded the poorest individuals and targeted middle-income earners. Leveraging quasi-random geographic variation in recipient shares and a difference-in-differences design, I find that the transfer raised the incumbent party’s vote share by 0.18 percentage points per 1 pp rise in recipients. These gains persist for at least five years. Political returns are stronger in areas with relatively richer beneficiaries, despite weaker consumption responses, and electoral punishment for exclusion is similarly asymmetric: higher-income excluded individuals reduce support for the incumbent, while poorer excluded individuals do not. Voters also punish incumbents when transfers are revoked, helping explain why temporary programs are rarely repealed. A counterfactual transfer targeting poorer households would have increased the consumption response by 30\% but reduced electoral returns by at least 15\%. These findings highlight a key political-economy trade-off in stimulus design, where electoral incentives skew transfers toward politically responsive recipients, as opposed to consumption responsive recipients. JEL: D72, H23, H53, I38, O15. |
| JEL: | D72 H23 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33973 |