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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Marius Kröper; Valentin Lindlacher |
| Abstract: | We investigate how reducing information costs through forced experimentation with postal voting, while holding administrative rules fixed, affects subsequent voting behavior. Leveraging a natural experiment during Bavaria’s 2020 Mayoral Elections and drawing on municipality-level administrative data spanning seven federal and state elections (2013-2025), we employ an event study design. We find a transitory increase in total turnout of 0.4 percentage points in the first election after the treatment, one and a half years later, and a persistent substitution from in-person to postal voting even five years after the treatment. Municipalities with a higher turnout in the past show larger effects. Investigating the distribution of information costs shows an age gradient, with the highest information costs in the oldest municipalities. The conservative governing party gains from higher postal turnout and other right-wing parties’ in-person voters. |
| Keywords: | postal voting, voter turnout, lLocal elections, information costs, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | D72 H70 D83 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12075 |
| By: | Steven T. Berry; Christian Cox; Philip Haile |
| Abstract: | We study voting in general elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our data set includes demographics and turnout of all registered voters for the years 2016–2020, as well as vote shares at the precinct and contest level. We estimate a Downsian voting model incorporating rich observed and unobserved heterogeneity at the voter and contest level. We find that voters with high perceived voting costs tend to favor Democrats, as do marginal voters in most districts. Variation in state voting policies accounts for a modest share of overall estimated voting costs but is sufficient to determine the majority party in some years. We also find that many states’ district maps favor one party in converting votes to seats. On net, these biases favor Republicans. For example, we estimate that winning 50% of votes in every state would give Republicans a nine percentage point seat advantage in the House. |
| JEL: | H10 L0 P0 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34149 |
| By: | Wesley H. Holliday |
| Abstract: | Proponents of Condorcet voting face the question of what to do in the rare case when no Condorcet winner exists. Recent work provides compelling arguments for the rule that should be applied in three-candidate elections, but already with four candidates, many rules appear reasonable. In this paper, we consider a recent proposal of a simple Condorcet voting method for Final Four political elections. Our question is what normative principles could support this simple form of Condorcet voting. When there is no Condorcet winner, one natural principle is to pick the candidate who is closest to being a Condorcet winner. Yet there are multiple plausible ways to define closeness, leading to different results. Here we take the following approach: identify a relatively uncontroversial sufficient condition for one candidate to be closer than another to being a Condorcet winner; then use other principles to help settle who wins in cases when that condition alone does not. We prove that our principles uniquely characterize the simple Condorcet voting method for Final Four elections. This analysis also points to a new way of extending the method to elections with five or more candidates that is simpler than an extension previously considered. The new proposal is to elect the candidate with the most head-to-head wins, and if multiple candidates tie for the most wins, then elect the one who has the smallest head-to-head loss. We provide additional principles sufficient to characterize this simple method for Final Five elections. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.17095 |
| By: | Matilde Bombardini; Frederico Finan; Nicolas Longuet-Marx; Suresh Naidu; Francesco Trebbi |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of climate change and mitigation-related employment changes on U.S. politics. We combine 2000-2020 precinct-level voting information and congressional candidate positions on environmental policy with high-resolution temperature, precipitation, and census block-group level measures of “green” and “brown” employment shares. Holding politician positions fixed within a district, we find that Democratic vote shares increase with exogenous changes in local climate and green transition employment. We embed these estimates into a model of political competition, including both direct and demand-driven effects of shocks on candidate supply of climate policy positions. Incorporating these estimates into 2022-2050 projections of climate change and green employment transition, we find that voting for the Democratic Party increases, while both parties move slightly to the right on climate policy. Under worst-case climate projections and current mitigation trajectories, our estimates indicate that the probability the House passes a carbon-pricing bill is 9 percentage points higher in 2050 than in 2020. |
| JEL: | D72 D78 P0 Q5 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34120 |
| By: | Herrmann, Oliver (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | Do citizens of democratic nations have a civic duty to cast a vote in elections? Thequestion of whether such a duty to vote exists is a topic of much debate. I revisita common generalization argument for the existence of a civic duty and, combininginsights from the economics and political science literature, contend that no such dutyfollows. However, I show that the generalization argument can instead be used toestablish the existence of a partisan duty to vote. That is, an argument can be madethat those who identify with a political party, or a group whose interests align witha subset of parties, share a moral obligation to act in the electoral interest of theirin-group. I discuss empirical evidence in support of the notion that there is a strongpartisan element to voters’ duty perceptions. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gro:rugfeb:2024001-eef |
| By: | Yaron Azrieli; Ritesh Jain; Semin Kim |
| Abstract: | We study the design of voting mechanisms in a binary social choice environment where agents' cardinal valuations are independent but not necessarily identically distributed. The mechanism must be anonymous -- the outcome is invariant to permutations of the reported values. We show that if there are two agents then expected welfare is always maximized by an ordinal majority rule, but with three or more agents there are environments in which cardinal mechanisms that take into account preference intensities outperform any ordinal mechanism. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.08055 |
| By: | Grund, Christian (RWTH Aachen University); Monschau, Philipp (RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of purpose-based rules for behavior and outcomes in a threshold public good game. Rules can be sufficient or even inflated in terms of proposing a fulfilling behavior. We conduct a lab experiment to describe the implications caused by the inflation of a rule. Our study shows that inflated rules are obeyed less. Yet, rule-following occurs also with inflated rules which leads to lower efficiency regarding exactly providing the threshold. A fair share option can help to coordinate efficiently. We complement our analysis by the investigation of the role of the implemented rules for the ex-post optimal behavior, i.e. evaluating the individual contribution depending on the individual payoff. |
| Keywords: | thresholds, groups, cooperation, coordination, rule-following, public goods |
| JEL: | C9 H41 M5 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18075 |