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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León; Adelina Barbalau; Cyndi Hou; Alessio Piccolo |
| Abstract: | We study how dominant employers can act as *electoral monopsonies*, using local labor market power to shape political preferences and electoral outcomes. We first present original survey evidence showing that workers at major local employers are more likely to experience employer political communication and to report that their employers influence their voting behavior and career expectations. We then develop a model in which a dominant employer can affect voters’ preferences by shaping their expectations about how wages and employment depend on electoral outcomes. We distinguish a passive channel, through which workers internalize firms’ economic interests, from an active channel, through which dominant employers strategically influence these expectations. Under the active channel, labor market power translates into political power and can generate political failures by inducing voters to oppose policies they would otherwise support. The model also shows how electoral monopsonies can contribute to political polarization, constrain political platforms, and substitute for campaign spending. Using U.S. individual-level voting data and a shift-share design based on national industry concentration shocks and predetermined local employment shares, we show that greater electoral monopsony power increases Republican voter turnout. Counterfactual estimates imply that reducing electoral monopsony power could have narrowly changed the outcomes of the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections. |
| JEL: | D72 J42 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35676 |
| By: | Vannutelli, Silvia |
| 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: higherincome 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 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342456 |
| By: | Aman Ray; Srikanth Pai |
| Abstract: | In the standard Downsian model, two office-seeking parties converge to the median voter. However alienated voters may abstain and turn out only for a party within their tolerance radius. For single-peaked voter distributions, convergence survives but relocates to a central voter, the median of the electorate that participates at the convergent platform. However single-peakedness of the voter distribution is an empirically contested assumption. So we first characterize pure-strategy equilibrium for any continuous voter distribution. For general distributions, pure-strategy equilibrium can fail to exist or be non-unique, and existence of equilibrium need not persist as the tolerance radius of the voters increases. In order to resolve these issues, we propose a fundamental object: \emph{centripetal} structure for which there is a single anchor platform toward which competition always pulls. We show this structure produces convergence at equilibrium under alienation based abstention. Our main result concerns the emergence and persistence of this new structure as the tolerance radius increases. Even though equilibria for office-seeking parties themselves can vanish and reappear as the radius grows, once centripetal structure emerges, it persists as long as the midpoint voter is not alienated. Moreover, the centripetal structure always emerges, and this structure classifies equilibrium completely when parties are policy motivated. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.03788 |
| By: | Invernizzi, Giovanna M.; Trombetta, Federico |
| Abstract: | We develop a model of partisan factions within an accountability framework. The incumbent leader can implement reforms but faces an internal faction that may undermine reform effectiveness through dissent. Unlike the faction, the leader's preferences align with those of the voter. Dissent reveals information to the voter about the leader's strength, sometimes inducing over-reform-strong leaders reform even when they should not. Moderate factional strength enhances voter welfare by balancing reform effectiveness and policy accuracy. Active dissent can improve welfare relative to strategic silence, and strong leaders may benefit more from dissent than from silence. |
| Keywords: | factions, accountability, reforms |
| JEL: | D72 D78 H11 P00 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:342526 |
| By: | Raphaël Franck (CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, University of Stuttgart = Universität Stuttgart); Victor Gay (IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This study argues that urbanization changed the relationship between candidates' occupation and their electoral success. To identify the causal effect of local variation in urbanization, we exploit exogenous changes in the boundaries of electoral constituencies in the 1928, 1932, and 1936 French parliamentary elections. We find that urbanization reduced the electoral success of lawyers—who had historically dominated electoral politics—while benefiting employees and workers. This effect was concentrated on the left of the political spectrum, whereby left-wing employees and workers displaced left-wing lawyers. |
| Keywords: | Third Republic, France, Urbanization, Political representation, Election |
| Date: | 2026–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04364519 |
| By: | Masayuki Haruhara |
| Abstract: | We study causal moderation when treatment assignment is randomized but the moderator is not. We combine the parallel estimation framework with front-door adjustment to identify an average mediated treatment moderation effect. We apply this approach to 165 municipal assembly elections in Tokyo (1987-2023), where pamphlet positions are assigned by lottery and total pamphlet pages are mechanically determined by candidate set size and fixed municipal rules. One additional candidate increases the front-page effect on winning probability by 0.322 percentage points through the page-count channel, 8.0% of its baseline magnitude, while the back-page effect does not increase significantly. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.20779 |