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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Łukasz Baszczak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Ewa Weychert (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between political outcomes and fertility behavior by linking electoral results with individual-level fertility outcomes in the United Kingdom. Drawing and the narrative decision-making framework (Vignoli et al., 2020; Johnson, Bilovich, & Tuckett, 2023) and the role of political polarization in fertility outcomes (Dahl et al. 2022) it considers how alignment between one’s political preferences and the actual party in power shapes fertility behaviour. Specifically, the study tests whether this alignment increases the probability of a first birth using longitudinal data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) over the period 1991–2020. We derive the month of conception from respondents’ birth histories and combine this information with measures of their political preferences (extrapolated to account for every month in the studied period). The results of a complementary log-log model indicate that the probability of conception is higher when an individual’s preferred party is in government. |
| Keywords: | fertility, uncertainty, narrative decision theory, voting behavior, United Kingdom |
| JEL: | J13 D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-17 |
| By: | Haris Aziz; Patrick Lederer; Jeremy Vollen |
| Abstract: | In approval-based budget division, the task is to allocate a divisible resource to the candidates based on the voters' approval preferences over the candidates. For this setting, Brandl et al. [2021] have shown that no distribution rule can be strategyproof, efficient, and fair at the same time. In this paper, we aim to circumvent this impossibility theorem by focusing on approximate strategyproofness. To this end, we analyze the incentive ratio of distribution rules, which quantifies the maximum multiplicative utility gain of a voter by manipulating. While it turns out that several classical rules have a large incentive ratio, we prove that the Nash product rule ($\mathsf{NASH}$) has an incentive ratio of $2$, thereby demonstrating that we can bypass the impossibility of Brandl et al. by relaxing strategyproofness. Moreover, we show that an incentive ratio of $2$ is optimal subject to some of the fairness and efficiency properties of $\mathsf{NASH}$, and that the positive result for the Nash product rule even holds when voters may report arbitrary concave utility functions. Finally, we complement our results with an experimental analysis. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.11736 |
| By: | Catia Batista; Lara Bohnet; Jules Gazeaud; Julia Seither |
| Abstract: | International migration can promote development in both origin and destination countries. We hypothesize that migrant integration in destination countries is an important constraint on these gains. Using a randomized controlled trial, we study the effects of a low-cost, scalable digital intervention designed to reduce information frictions among Cape Verdean immigrants in Portugal. Access to the intervention improves migrants’ labor market outcomes, legal status, social integration with native-born individuals, and aspirations. These integration gains generate international spillovers, increasing political participation and leading to more egalitarian gender norms in the migrants’ origin-country. Leveraging variation in official destination country electoral data, we show that political participation transmits through increased exposure of better-integrated migrants to prevalent local norms at destination. These international turnout spillovers are weaker in localities with higher far-right support, consistent with a less migrant welcoming political climate attenuating norm diffusion. |
| Keywords: | International migration, Migrant integration, Randomized field experiment, Employment, Immigrant regularization, Remittances, Voting, Gender norms |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp2503 |
| By: | Aidt, T. S.; De Freitas, L. A. |
| Abstract: | This paper documents and explains the evolution of spatial variation in the municipal voting franchise in England and Wales between 1835 and 1897. Using newly assembled data on voters across Municipal Corporations, we examine how a uniform legal framework produced divergent local democratic outcomes. Applying concepts of β- and σ-convergence from the growth literature, we show strong β-convergence: initially less democratic municipalities expanded their franchise more rapidly than highly democratic ones. However, σ-convergence is weak overall, reflecting the off-setting effects of major national reforms and other shocks. Our findings reveal how de jure uniformity translates into persistent de facto democratic heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Democracy, Franchise Extension, Local Government, England, 19th Century |
| Date: | 2026–04–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2637 |
| By: | Nicholas Teh |
| Abstract: | We study proportional representation in the temporal voting model, where collective decisions are made repeatedly over time over a fixed horizon. Prior work has extensively investigated how proportional representation axioms from multiwinner voting (e.g., justified representation (JR) and its variants) can be adapted, satisfied, and verified in this setting. However, much less is understood about their interaction with social welfare. In this work, we quantify the efficiency cost of enforcing proportionality. We formalize the welfare-proportionality tension via the worst-case ratio between the maximum achievable utilitarian welfare and the maximum welfare attainable subject to a proportionality axiom. We show that imposing proportional representation in the temporal setting can incur a growing, yet sublinear, welfare loss as the number of voters or rounds increases. We further identify a clean separation among axioms: for JR, the welfare loss diminishes as the time horizon grows and vanishes asymptotically, whereas for stronger axioms this conflict persists even with many rounds. Moreover, we prove that welfare maximization under each axiom is NP-complete and APX-hard, even under static preferences and bounded-degree approvals, and provide fixed-parameter algorithms under several natural structural parameters. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.11157 |
| By: | Sandra Bohmann; Lars Felder; Peter Haan; Merve Kucuk; ; Laura Schmitz; Jürgen Schupp |
| Abstract: | Carbon pricing can deliver large emissions reductions, but public opposition remains a key barrier. We study how support for carbon tax-and-transfer schemes depends on policy design and information provision in a large-scale survey experiment with German respondents. Explaining the policy mechanism robustly increases support across price levels. Information on distributional consequences raises support only when revenue recycling is sufficiently generous, and can secure majority approval even at high carbon prices. Individualized cost information increases support among those who overestimated costs, with no backlash for under-estimators when redistribution is high. These effects operate through distinct fairness channels: information shapes both self- and other-regarding justice perceptions, and while self-interest predicts support, other-regarding concerns — particularly for the poor — are an independent driver of policy acceptance. Our findings suggest that political feasibility hinges not only on policy design, but on making the mechanism understood and its distributional implications visible. |
| Keywords: | Climate policy, distributional effects, public support, justice perceptions |
| JEL: | Q52 Q58 H23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2164 |