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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Salvatore Carrozzo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of a temporary forced internal migration on the voting behavior in the receiving municipalities. During World War I, around 500, 00 thousand displaced nationals were resettled from the Italian government within the country and stayed in the receiving place for less than two years. Leveraging on the quasi-random relocation policy and the short stay of displaced individuals, I evaluate whether hosting a large share of forced migrants affects voting behavior in the subsequent elections. Findings indicate that an increase in the share of hosted displaced individuals corresponds to a decrease in the vote share for the Italian Popular Party (PPI), the Catholic party. This aligns with historical evidence highlighting the significant role of Catholic associations in assisting displaced people at arrival. The negative impact on the Catholic party persisted for two consecutive elections, 1919 and 1921, before dissipating in 1924. Anti-competitive behavior for public services is likely to explain the voting behavior. |
| Keywords: | displaced people, political outcomes, public spending, resettlement policies |
| JEL: | D72 H53 I38 N34 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11737 |
| By: | Kavetsos, Georgios; Krekel, Christian; Melios, George |
| Abstract: | Two prominent mechanisms have been advanced to explain the effects of election outcomes on economic attitudes/perceptions: partisan competence attribution, based on voters' genuine belief of an elected party's competence; and partisan motivated reasoning, where voters change their economic attitudes so as to remain consistent with their past behavior/view. To date, these two mechanisms have not been considered jointly. We draw on a unique, closely spaced, panel dataset around the 2013 German general elections to consider retrospective (past evaluations) and prospective (future expectations) attitudes about both one's personal economic situation and that of the national economy. We find no evidence for competence attribution; voters of the future coalition parties do not expect higher household incomes nor their job situation to improve. We find changes in retrospective attitudes about the national economy, explained by partisan motivated reasoning given a political alliance that was negated and depreciated throughout the pre‐election period. We discuss the implications these results have. |
| Keywords: | elections; voting; attitudes; motivated reasoning |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–04–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127528 |
| By: | Gustavo J. Bobonis; Anke Kessler; Xin Zhao; Anke S. Kessler |
| Abstract: | To what extent can anti-corruption measures serve to limit patronage and corrupt networks effectively and sustainably in clientelist societies with a prevailing norm of corruption? We develop a political agency model in which office holders are motivated to reduce rent seeking behavior through re-election incentives operating via elections and audits (formal institutions), but also through reputational or self-image concerns that are influenced by the prevailing norm on corruption in their peer group (informal institutions). We show that, while the formal institutions of audits and elections have the desired direct effect of reducing corruption, they also affect informal rules of conduct, which can have unintended effects. In particular, in clientelist societies with high levels of corruption, the social concerns work in opposition to formal incentives provided by anti-corruption efforts. Applying the theory to data from Puerto Rico’s anti-corruption municipal audits program, we find evidence consistent with the idea that anti-corruption measures are less effective due to social spillovers. |
| Keywords: | norms of corruption, informal institutions, audits, electoral discipline |
| JEL: | D73 D72 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11715 |
| By: | Fajgelbaum, Pablo PhD; Gaubert, Cecile PhD; Gorton, Nicole; Morales, Eduardo; Schaal, Edouard |
| Abstract: | We study how political preferences shaped California’s High-Speed Rail (CHSR), a largetransportation project approved by referendum in 2008. Voters’ support responded significantly to the projected economic gains in their tract of residence, as measured by a quantitative model of high-speed rail matched to CHSR plans. Given this response, a revealed-preference approach comparing the proposed network with alternative designs identifies strong planner’s preferences for political support. The optimal politically-blind design would have placed the stations nearer to California’s dense metro areas, where it was harder to sway votes, thus increasing the projected economic gains. |
| Keywords: | Business |
| Date: | 2024–07–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt5zh3s8nv |
| By: | Takahiro Suzuki; Stefano Moretti; Michele Aleandri |
| Abstract: | A primary challenge in collective decision-making is that achieving unanimous agreement is difficult, even at the level of criteria. The history of social choice theory illustrates this: numerous normative criteria on voting rules have been proposed; however, disagreements persist regarding which criteria should take precedence. This study addresses the problem of ranking alternatives based on the aggregation of opinions over criteria that the alternatives might fulfill. Using the opinion aggregation model, we propose a new rule, termed the Intersection Initial Segment (IIS) rule, and characterize it using five axioms: neutrality, independence of the worst set, independence of the best set, weak intersection very important player, and independence of non-unanimous improvement. We illustrate our approach on a running example where the objective is to rank voting rules, showing that our opinion aggregation model is particularly well-suited to this context, and that the IIS rule is a counterpart to the method discussed in Nurmi's paper (2015). |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2504.06676 |