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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Dan Bernhardt; Stefan Krasa; Mattias Polborn |
| Abstract: | Many political commentators diagnose an increasing polarization of the U.S. electorate into two opposing camps. However, in standard spatial voting models, changes in the political preference distribution are irrelevant as long as the position of the median voter does not change. We show that media bias provides a mechanism through which political polarization can affect electoral outcomes. In our model, media firms’ profits depend on their audience rating. Maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by slanting the news. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news suppression bias and update appropriately, important information is lost through bias, potentially resulting in inefficient electoral outcomes. We show that polarization increases the profitability of slanting news, thereby raising the likelihood of electoral mistakes. We also show that, if media are biased, then there are some news realizations such that the electorate appears more polarized to an outside observer, even if citizens’ policy preferences do not change. |
| Keywords: | media bias, polarization, information aggregation, democracy |
| JEL: | D72 D80 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1798&r=pol |
| By: | Jan Schnellenbach; Lars P. Feld; Christoph A. Schaltegger |
| Abstract: | The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true preferences of candidates makes strategic delegation impossible. Instead, it is shown that the existence of rent extraction by delegates alone suffices to make cooperative centralisation more likely through representative democracy. In the non-cooperative case, the more extensive possibilities for institutional design under representative democracy increase the likelihood of centralisation. Direct democracy may thus be interpreted as a federalism-preserving institution. |
| Keywords: | centralisation, direct democracy, representative democracy, public good provision |
| JEL: | D78 H73 H77 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1803&r=pol |
| By: | Sebastian Bervoets; Vincent Merlin |
| Abstract: | This paper is devoted to the analysis of all constitutions equipped with electoral systems involving two step procedures. First, one candidate is elected in every jurisdiction by the electors in that jurisdiction, according to some aggregation procedure. Second, another aggregation procedure collects the names of the jurisdictional winners in order to designate the final winner. It appears that whenever individuals are allowed to change jurisdiction when casting their ballot, they are able to manipulate the result of the election except in very few cases. When imposing a paretian condition on every jurisdiction?s voting rule, it is shown that, in the case of any finite number of candidates, any two steps voting rule that is not manipulable by movement of the electors necessarily gives to every voter the power of overruling the unanimity on its own. A characterization of the set of these rules is next provided in the case of two candidates. |
| Keywords: | Gerrymandering, manipulation, two-tiers voting systems |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2006–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:669.06&r=pol |
| By: | Korhonen, Iikka (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we utilise a large and reasonably detailed dataset to show that a greater level of democracy in a country's political institutions can alleviate the widely known resource curse. Raw material abundance affects per capita growth negatively, an effect that seems to work through several different channels. Resource-abundant countries have a lower degree of democracy and political rights, and also a lower level of educational attainment. These factors inhibit growth. On the other hand, countries with large extractive industries exhibit high levels of investment. The effects of resource abundance differ for different raw material types, and the largest negative effect on growth appears to come from non-fuel extractive raw materials. |
| Keywords: | economic growth; resource curse; cross-country regression; development; governance; institutions |
| Date: | 2004–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2004_018&r=pol |
| By: | Manuel Couret Branco (Department of Economics, University of Évora) |
| Abstract: | Pure mainstream economics, based on methodological and sociological individualism usually ignores politics; development economics, on the contrary frequently integrates social and political factors in order to explain economic progress. Within this branch of economics, politics can mainly be dealt in two different approaches. The classical and neoclassical approach takes politics essentially as an obstacle to the expression of agents’ rationality, and, therefore considers it a disturbance. A more heterodox approach of development, on the contrary, puts politics at the heart of the process, development being an economic as much as a political process. Those, like A. Sen, that take human rights, both as a means and an end to development do not separate the two processes as well. Be that as it may, and despite the opposed ways in which these approaches take politics, all consider governance, and its democratic or authoritarian character, a key factor in the development process. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of the issue of democratic governance within the development process. In the first part of the paper I will make a review of the main literature concerning the impacts of democracy on economic development and the importance of promoting democracy. In the second part of the paper the analysis will focus on the political economy of democratization, namely on the obstacles standing before democracy, and on the economic policies and reforms needed to facilitate democratization. The diagnosis states that democratization needs to deal with inequality of income distribution, with institutional design in order to overcome cultural divisions within the nations, with diversification of the sources of income and with a new economic order characterized by an erased debt burden and a more equitable distribution of the benefits of international trade. |
| JEL: | A10 F02 F50 F54 H11 O10 O17 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:evo:wpecon:12_2006&r=pol |
| By: | DellaVigna, Stefano (UC Berkeley and NBER); Kaplan, Ethan (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Does media bias affect voting? We analyze the entry of Fox News in cable markets and its impact on voting. Between October 1996 and November 2000, the conservative Fox News Channel was introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of US towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely idiosyncratic, conditional on a set of controls. Using a data set of voting data for 9,256 towns, we investigate if republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News entered the cable market by the year 2000. We find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns which broadcast Fox News. Fox News also aected the Republican vote share in the Senate and voter turnout. Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 28 percent of its viewers to vote Republican, depending on the audience measure. The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for non-rational voters subject to persuasion. |
| Keywords: | - |
| JEL: | C53 H10 |
| Date: | 2006–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iiessp:0748&r=pol |
| By: | Stern, Charlotta (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Klein, Daniel B. (George Mason University, USA, (and Ratio Institute, Stockholm).) |
| Abstract: | People often suppose or imply that free-market economists constitute a significant portion of all economists. We surveyed American Economic Association members and asked their views on 18 specific forms of government activism. We find that about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters. The data is broken down by voting behavior (Democratic or Republican). Even the average Republican AEA member is “middle-of-the-road,” not free-market. We offer several possible explanations of the apparent difference between actual and attributed views. |
| Keywords: | - |
| Date: | 2006–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2006_006&r=pol |
| By: | Dominique M. Gross; Nicolas Schmitt |
| Abstract: | With a focus on the role of cultural clustering and income distribution, this paper investigates whether standard determinants influence international migration of workers to France with the same intensity across different skill levels and with or without free mobility. We find that low-skill migrants respond to most push and pull migration factors. High-skill migrants however respond only to financial incentives and cultural clustering does not matter. Migration policy is effective at controlling flows of low-skill migrants but free mobility has no impact on high-skill flows. Hence, France must rely on growing earnings and skill-premium to attract high-skill workers from high income countries. |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O24 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1797&r=pol |
| By: | Veselý, Arnošt (Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | The article analyzes the extent of the transmission of social capital from parents to their children. Three measures of social capital are used: social trust, participation in social activities and useful social connections. The data from the longitudinal extension of the PISA collected in the Czech Republic in 2003 are used. First, bivariate correlations of three types of social capital are analyzed. Second, using logistic regression, four theoretical models (the social capital model, the family background model, the personality model and the contextual model) are tested. As dependent variables we use the social trust of fifteen-year-olds and their participation in four types of extra-curricular activities. The analysis reveals only a weak intergenerational transmission of the same social capital types (“intergenerational line-up”) and almost no intergenerational transmission of different social capital types (“intergenerational cross-over”). No theoretical model is particularly strong in explaining the social trust of children. The social trust of youths remains largely unexplained and is created irrespectively of family cultural and financial capital. Conversely, participation in extra-curricular activities is highly socially stratified. It is substantially better predicted by all theoretical models, though their effect is dependent upon the activity at stake. The author concludes that social capital is comprised of several different forms of capital, which are only distantly related. The finding that family background has a relatively weak impact on children’s social trust but a strong effect on their participation of extra-curricular activities has profound implications for public policy. |
| Keywords: | Social capital; social trust; political socialization; generations; the Czech Republic; youths |
| JEL: | A12 Z00 Z13 |
| Date: | 2006–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0105&r=pol |