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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Antonella Ianni; Margarita Katsimi; Helia Marreiros |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates a voting model in which two candidates strategically compete in a winner-take-all election. Voters consider both the spatial dimension of policy positions and other attributes, or valence, of each candidate. Candidates are policy motivated and endeavor to make specific attributes ”salient” in voters’ minds by leveraging their comparative advantages to influence the voting outcome - a form of ”heresthetic” behaviour. The paper offers three contributions. First, it characterizes Salient Political Equilibria and suggests ways in which the notion of salience can be made operational. Second, it provides novel experimental evidence supporting voting salient behaviour. Third, it offers empirical evidence that candidates internalize the externality that ensues from voters salient behaviour, in the context of the European migration crisis of 2015. The theoretical, experimental, and empirical findings challenge the conventional median voter paradigm and its implications by highlighting the significant impact of voters’ salience on electoral outcomes. |
| Keywords: | voting, salience, valence, heresthetic, experiment |
| JEL: | D72 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12200 |
| By: | H\'ector Hermida-Rivera |
| Abstract: | This note characterizes every qualified majority voting rule with a quota $q$ strictly greater than half of the voter set in environments with just two alternatives through anonymity, responsiveness, and $q$-neutrality. Crucially, the latter imposes independence of the labels of the alternatives only for all preference profiles in which some alternative is strictly top-ranked by at least $q$ voters. Thus, this note generalizes May's (1952, Theorem, p.~682) well-known axiomatic characterization of the simple majority voting rule to qualified majority voting rules with a quota $q$ strictly greater than half of the voter set. In doing so, it shows that these qualified majority voting rules are precisely distinguished by their "degree" of neutrality. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.19823 |
| By: | Stefano Carattini; Ian Fletcher; Chad Kendall; Michael K. Price; Arthur Vu |
| Abstract: | Many socially desirable policies are not implemented because of their ex-ante unpopularity, but this unpopularity may be overcome through experience with the policy. In this paper, we examine how opposition to carbon pricing in the state of Washington turned into support after voters experienced a cap-and-trade policy with revenues earmarked for environmental purposes – "cap-and-invest." Analyzing voting behavior at the census block group level, we observe that support varies by political affiliation as expected, but experience consistently increases support across the board. Using a proprietary survey, we further show that the increase in support among voters in Washington state is specific to the cap-and-invest policy they experienced; support for carbon pricing or climate policies more generally remained unchanged. |
| Keywords: | carbon pricing, experience, public support, voting, polarization |
| JEL: | C93 D72 D83 H23 H71 Q58 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12206 |
| By: | Boris Ginzburg |
| Abstract: | This paper models voters who invest effort to determine whether a particular claim relevant to their voting choices is correct. If a voter succeeds in determining whether the claim is correct, this information is shared via a social network. I show that increased connectivity makes voters more informed about basic facts, but less informed about complicated issues. At the same time, polarization makes voters less informed overall. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.15454 |
| By: | Garg, Devansh |
| Abstract: | We present an agent-based simulation of democratic decision-making in which autonomous learning agents interact under alternative electoral institutions and social structures. The model integrates six voting mechanisms (Plurality, Approval, Borda, IRV, STV, PR with D'Hondt and Sainte-Laguë divisors), a multi-round coalition protocol with binding/non-binding contracts and side-payments, turnout and ballot-error realism, and networked interaction on Erdös–Rényi, Barabási–Albert, and Watts–Strogatz graphs with homophily. Agents use reinforcement learning algorithms (PPO, A2C, A3C) with a social-welfare objective based on the inequality-averse Atkinson function, augmented by fairness regularizers (representation loss, participation fairness, envy-freeness proxy) and explicit participation costs. We report diagnostics-rich evaluations covering representation and proportionality (e.g., Gallagher, Loosemore–Hanby), fragmentation (effective number of parties), strategic behavior, coalition stability, and welfare/inequality. Classic regularities emerge—e.g., two-bloc competition under Plurality (Duverger-consistent), greater proportionality and fragmentation under PR, and differential seat allocation under D'Hondt vs Sainte-Laguë—providing face validity. The framework delivers a reproducible virtual laboratory for mechanism comparison, institutional design, and welfare–fairness trade-off analysis at population scale. |
| Date: | 2025–10–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mp9kh_v1 |
| By: | Yaron Azrieli (The Ohio State University); Ritesh Jain (University of Liverpool); Semin Kim (Yonsei University) |
| 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:yon:wpaper:2025rwp-265 |
| By: | Martinez-Felip, Daniel; Schilizzi, Steven G.M.; Nguyen, Chi; Pannell, David |
| Abstract: | In analysing potential policy responses to improve outcomes in collective-action problems, economists often focus on financial disincentives to reduce the expected gains from free-riding and thereby promote within-group cooperation. In this study, we investigate the potential for groups to develop non-financial disincentives to free riding, thereby promoting convergence towards collectively beneficial actions. Using a within-subjects laboratory experiment, participants play two multi-period public-goods games sequentially: without and then with non-financial incentives activated by allowing for the endogenous formation of a social exclusion mechanism. This is operationalised by allowing participants, at a personal cost, to assign exclusion tickets to group members after observing their contributions: the member(s) having accumulated the most in their group gets excluded from a group activity not involving monetary payoffs nor linked to the main game. First, the threat of receiving exclusion tickets, then the threat of being excluded, and finally actually being excluded work as non-financial social disincentives to free ride. Results show that group members who contribute relatively less receive more exclusion tickets. By imposing expected social costs on relatively low contributors, exclusion or the threat of exclusion enables groups to operate with higher contribution levels, thereby reversing the collective decline in contributions observed in the Baseline public good game. Exclusion is experienced by individuals who consistently contribute less than other group members, and this experience amplifies the effectiveness of the subsequent exclusion threat. Willingness to incur personal costs to enhance the exclusion threat increases over time and it is shaped by more cooperative normative expectations. This effect is particularly pronounced among individuals who perceive norms as tight, especially when higher contributions become more dispersed. In the absence of financial disincentives, these patterns show how non-financial incentives, shaped by more cooperative normative expectations, can foster group coordination and higher public-good contributions. |
| Date: | 2025–10–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j7usg_v1 |
| By: | Paolo Buonanno; Giacomo Plevani |
| Abstract: | This paper shows how enduring agrarian institutions shaped the long-run political consequences of historical shocks. We study Italy’s sharecropping system (mezzadria) - a centuries-old fifty-fifty contract that structured rural relations across central Italy - and link its prewar prevalence to Socialist and Communist voting from 1913 to 1948. Using harmonized data for 720 agrarian zones and a combination of cross-sectional, entropy-balanced, and spatial RDD designs, we find that sharecropping was politically neutral before World War I but became a center of rural unrest and Fascist repression afterward. Areas with more sharecroppers experienced greater strike activity, targeted violence, and enduring left alignment. A daily panel of 1921 events shows repression peaking during annual contract renewals. The results reveal a “revolt-repression-realignment” mechanism through which local economic institutions converted wartime shocks into lasting partisan divides. |
| JEL: | P16 N54 N44 D72 D74 Q15 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1214 |
| By: | Baranski, Andrzej (New York University, Abu Dhabi); Reuben, Ernesto (New York University, Abu Dhabi); Riedl, Arno (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | In a laboratory experiment, we study the role of fairness ideals as focal points in coordination problems in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. We elicit the normatively preferred behavior about how a subsequent coordination game should be played. In homogeneous groups, people share a unique fairness ideal how to solve the coordination problem, whereas in heterogeneous groups, multiple conflicting fairness ideals prevail. In the coordination game, homogeneous groups are significantly more likely than their heterogeneous counterparts to sustain efficient coordination. The reason is that homogeneous groups coordinate on the unique fairness ideal, whereas heterogeneous groups disagree on the fairness ideal to be played. In both types of groups, equilibria consistent with fairness ideals are most stable. Hence, the difference in coordination success between homogeneous and heterogeneous groups occurs because of the normative disagreement in the latter types of group, making it much harder to reach an equilibrium at a fairness ideal. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, coordination, focal points, fairness ideals, experiment |
| JEL: | H41 C92 D63 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18200 |
| By: | Becker, Max; Flach, Johanna; von Ondarza, Nicolai |
| Abstract: | The European Union operates largely in accordance with the principles of consensus democracy - that is, it seeks to integrate as many parties spanning the political spectrum of its member states as possible. Amid the recent growth of far-right parties at both the national and European level, this approach has led to the increased participation of such forces in EU institutions. Analysis of key actors at the EU level shows that since no later than the 2024 European elections, representatives of far-right parties have been involved in all major EU decisions. The centres of their influence are the European Council and the Council of the EU, where they participate as leaders or partners in national governments. But they are increasingly becoming more influential in the European Parliament, which has shifted to the right and where alternative majorities are now possible. At the same time, significant differences remain between the far-right parties. Ultimately, the extent of their influence and which far-right trend predominates within the EU system depends mainly on the largest force in European politics - the European People's Party. |
| Keywords: | European Union, European Parliament, consensus democracy, far-right parties, European Council, Council of the EU, European People's Party (EPP), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), Patriots for Europe (PfE), Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swpcom:329912 |