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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Galina Zudenkova |
| Abstract: | Voters often split tickets, voting for candidates from different parties in simultaneous elections. In this paper, I apply a political agency framework with implicit incentives to study ticket splitting in simultaneous municipal and regional elections. I show that ticket splitting is a natural outcome of the optimal reelection scheme adopted by voters to motivate politicians' efforts in a retrospective voting environment. I assume that an office-motivated politician (mayor or governor) prefers her counterpart to be affiliated with the same political party. This correlation of incentives leads the voters to adopt a joint performance evaluation rule, which is conditioned on the politicians belonging to the same party or different parties. The model is dynamic, generating predictions of split-ticket voting over time. I show that ticket splitting is less likely than electing candidates from the same party, but somewhat depends on ticket splitting in the previous period. Ticket splitting is also more likely in smaller municipalities, where the party affiliation of a mayor is assumed to be of less importance to the governor. These theoretical results are consistent with empirical evidence from simultaneous municipal and regional elections held in Spain. |
| Keywords: | Split-ticket voting, Simultaneous elections, Implicit incentive contracts, Political Agency, Retrospective voting |
| JEL: | D72 D82 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1011&r=pol |
| By: | Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay; Kalyan Chatterjee; Tomas Sjostrom |
| Abstract: | We study a game-theoretic model where political parties can form coalitions both before and after the elections. Before election, coalitions can commit to a seat-sharing arrangement, but not to a policy or to a division of rents from office; coalition members are free to break up and join other coalitions after the election. Equilibrium pre-electoral coalitions are not necessarily made up of the most ideologically similar parties, and they form under proportional representation as well as plurality rule. They do so to avoid "splitting the vote", but also because seat-sharing arrangements will influence the ex post bargaining and coalition formation. |
| Keywords: | Ex ante coalition, ex post bargaining |
| JEL: | C72 D72 H19 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bir:birmec:09-10r&r=pol |
| By: | Moses Shayo; Alon Harel |
| Abstract: | Standard theory assumes that voters' preferences over actions (voting) are induced by their preferences over electoral outcomes (policies, candidates). But voters may also have non-consequentialist (NC) motivations: they may care about how they vote even if it does not a¤ect the outcome. When the likelihood of being pivotal is small, NC motivations can dominate voting behavior. To examine the prevalence of NC motivations, we design an experiment that exogenously varies the probability of being pivotal yet holds constant other features of the decision environment. We find a significant e¤ect, consistent with at least 12.5% of subjects being motivated by NC concerns. |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp545&r=pol |
| By: | Luís Francisco Aguiar (Universidade do Minho - NIPE); Pedro C. Magalhães (University of Lisbon, Social Sciences Institute); Maria Joana Soares (Universidade do Minho) |
| Abstract: | The role of national, sectional, state, and local forces in driving electoral outcomes in the United States has remained a matter of considerable indeterminacy in the American politics literature. In what concerns House elections, different approaches and methods have yielded widely divergent results. In what concerns presidential elections, considerable doubts remain about the timing and the plausible causes of a long-term trend towards homogeneity. In this paper, we take a new look at the nationalization of politics in the United States. We are particularly interested in the dynamic nationalization in presidential elections, i.e., the extent to which swings and shifts from one election to the next have been similar across states and whether or not that similarity has increased through time. We treat this problem as one of similarity or dissimilarity — and convergence or divergence of — electoral cycles, and use wavelets analysis in order to ascertain the degree to which the national and state election cycles have been synchronized and the degree to which that synchronization has increased or decreased. We determine, first, the states where electoral change has been more in sync with the national cycle and clusters of states defined in terms of the mutual synchronization of their own electoral cycles. Second, we analyze how the degree of synchronization of electoral cycles in the states has changed through time, answering questions as to when, to what extent, and where has the tendency towards a “universality of political trends” in presidential elections been more strongly felt. We present evidence strongly in favor of an increase in the dynamic nationalization of presidential elections taking place in the 1950s, showing that alternative interpretations concerning the historical turning point in this respect are not supported by empirical evidence. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:17/2010&r=pol |
| By: | Marta Curto-Grau (Universitat de Barcelona); Alfonso Herranz-Loncán (Universitat de Barcelona); Albert Solé-Ollé (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the extent to which the public allocation of road investment was influenced by political and electoral goals during the Spanish Restoration (1874-1923). More precisely, we seek to identify those provinces that were favoured with higher road construction expenditure and whether tactical strategies adopted by the political parties varied over time to reflect increasing political competition. In so doing, this paper combines concepts from three strands of literature: legislative pork-barrel; clientelism and machine politics; and electoral competition. Our main empirical finding for a panel of Spain’s provinces suggests that constituencies electing a higher proportion of deputies from minority or opposition parties were initially punished through lower levels of road investment but that, by the end of the period, they were instead favoured with more resources than the rest. In addition, we also observe that senior deputies who had been ministers in previous administrations were more capable than other politicians of attracting resources to their constituencies |
| Keywords: | Road investment, distributive politics, electoral competition, vote buying |
| JEL: | H54 P16 D72 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2010/6/doc2010-22&r=pol |
| By: | Urs Fischbacher; Simon Schudy |
| Abstract: | Comprehensive reforms often fail or become piecemeal during preparatory phase of the legislation. A promising candidate to explain the failure of comprehensive reforms is vote trading on a subset of individual bills included in the original comprehensive reform. When legislators expect profitable vote trading on a subset of bills to be possible, they may ex ante strategically block comprehensive reforms. We analyze in a laboratory experiment whether trust and reciprocity among legislators leads to vote trading in sequential bill by bill procedures when commitment devices are missing and whether such vote trading possibilities cause resistance to comprehensive reform. We find that (i) transparent voting procedures facilitate vote trading based on trust in other legislators' reciprocity whereas (ii) secretive procedures reduce trust in others' reciprocity and makes vote trades difficult. (iii) Resistance to comprehensive reform occurs when legislators know that the alternative procedure to voting on the comprehensive reform is a transparent sequential bill by bill voting procedure, whereas (iv) legislators opt for voting on a comprehensive reform when the alternative procedure is a sequential secret ballot. |
| Keywords: | Comprehensive Reform, Sequential Voting, Vote Trading, Experiment |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:twi:respas:0051&r=pol |
| By: | Sam Allgood; William Bosshardt; Wilbert van der Klaauw; Michael Watts |
| Abstract: | Studies regularly link levels of educational attainment to civic behavior and attitudes, but only a few investigate the role played by specific coursework. Using data collected from students who attended one of four public universities in our study, we investigate the relationship between economics coursework and civic behavior after graduation. Drawing from large samples of students in economics, business, or general majors, we compare responses across the three groups and by the number of undergraduate economics courses completed. We find that undergraduate coursework in economics is strongly associated with political party affiliation and with donations to candidates or parties, but not with the decision to vote or not vote. Nor is studying economics correlated with the likelihood (or intensity of) volunteerism. While we find that the civic behavior of economics majors and business majors is similar, it appears that business majors are less likely than general majors to engage in time-consuming behaviors such as voting and volunteering. Finally, we extend earlier studies that address the link between economics coursework and attitudes on public policy issues, finding that graduates who studied more economics usually reported attitudes closer to those expressed in national surveys of U.S. economists. Interestingly, we find the public policy attitudes of business majors to be more like those of general majors than of economics majors. |
| Keywords: | Education ; Economics - Study and teaching ; Business and education ; Human behavior ; Volunteers |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:450&r=pol |
| By: | Roman M. Sheremeta (Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University) |
| Abstract: | This laboratory experiment studies two-stage contests between political parties. In the first stage, parties run their primaries and in the second stage the winners of the primaries compete in the general election. The resource expenditures in the first stage by the winning candidates are partially or fully carried over to the second stage. Experimental results support all major theoretical predictions: the first stage expenditures and the total expenditures increase, while the second stage expenditures decrease in the carryover rate. Consistent with the theory, the total expenditures increase in the number of candidates and the number of parties. Contrary to the theory, however, expenditures in both stages of the competition exceed theoretical predictions. Disclosing information about the opponent’s expenditures in the first stage increases the second stage expenditures and decreases the first stage expenditures. |
| Keywords: | political contest, experiments, information uncertainty, over-expenditures |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D72 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:09-10&r=pol |
| By: | Coleman, Stephen |
| Abstract: | Social interaction combined with social conformity spreads attitudes and behaviors through a society. This paper examines such a process geographically for compliance with the norm that good citizens should vote. The diffusion of conformist behavior affects the local degree of conformity with the norm and produces highly specific and predictable patterns of behavior across a country. These are demonstrated with qualitative and quantitative spatial analysis of voter turnout in the United States and Russia. |
| Keywords: | social conformity; norm compliance; voting; spatial analysis; United States; Russia; mathematical model; diffusion |
| JEL: | Z13 C31 D72 |
| Date: | 2010–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23057&r=pol |
| By: | Sebastian Braun; Michael Kvasnicka |
| Abstract: | Woman suffrage led to one of the greatest enfranchisements in history. Yet, women neither won the right to vote by force, nor did men grant it under the imminent threat of female unrest. These facts are difficult to reconcile with leading political economy theories of suffrage extensions. In this paper, we study suffrage extensions at the level of US states and territories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to learn about the factors that accelerated, respectively delayed, a jurisdiction's transition to woman suffrage. Our results show that the general scarcity of women in the American West, or a high sex ratio, was the single most important factor behind the region's lead in the enfranchisement of women in the US. High ratios of grantors (men) to grantees (women) of the franchise appear to have promoted earlier suffrage extensions, as these imbalances reduced the political costs and risks for male legislators and electorates. Our finding may provide a more general insight into the economics of voluntary power sharing. All else equal, smaller groups should find it much easier to acquire rights or to get admitted to economic and political clubs |
| Keywords: | Woman Suffrage; Democratization; Political Economy; Power Sharing; Sex Ratio |
| JEL: | D72 J16 K10 N41 N42 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1625&r=pol |
| By: | Bruszt, Laszlo; Campos, Nauro F.; Fidrmuc, Jan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between differences in civil society development under communism and the political, economic and institutional change and transformation after 1989. We collected a unique dataset on nature and intensity of |
| Keywords: | civil society, institutions, economic reform, democratization |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2010-38&r=pol |
| By: | Sergio Espuelas-Barroso (Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Most of the studies about the welfare state have focused so far on the affluent democracies. However, poorer and non-democratic countries have deserved less attention. This paper provides new evidence on the evolution of social spending in both Spain and Portugal between 1950 and 1980. Since both of them were dictatorships throughout almost the whole period, that new evidence allows us to study the relationship between dictatorships and redistribution. In addition to the level of social spending and its distribution among different items, the way in which social spending is financed is also analyzed in this paper. More exactly, the ratio of social security contributions to social spending is used as an indicator of redistribution. The main findings of this paper show that besides economic and demographic factors (as the level of GDP and the ageing of population) political factors are key determinants of social spending and the way in which it is funded. During the time-period 1950-80 dictatorships had a negative effect on social spending, and were more prone to finance social protection via social contributions, which did not imply redistribution through government budgets. Therefore, in contrast to the political legitimacy theories and those theories neglecting the role played by political factors, we find that (at least in the southern-European periphery) dictatorships were less redistributive than democracies. On the other hand, this papers findings also suggest that, rather than provoking a race to the bottom or an increase in social spending levels, globalization favored the adoption of tax-funded systems instead of contributory programs. |
| Keywords: | dictatorships, public social spending, welfare state, public economics, comparative economic history, redistribution |
| JEL: | D6 I00 N34 N44 H5 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bar:bedcje:2010240&r=pol |
| By: | Abigail McIntosh Allen (Harvard Business School); Karthik Ramanna (Harvard Business School, Accounting and Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of standard setters in standard setting. In particular, we examine how the backgrounds and personal politics of FASB members influence the nature of accounting standards proposed between 1973 and 2007. Among other results, we find that length of service on the board and a prior career in investment banking/ investment management are associated with proposing standards perceived as decreasing accounting "reliability;" while affiliation with the Democratic Party is associated with proposing standards perceived as increasing accounting "reliability." Broadly, the evidence suggests that individuals on the FASB have a wider influence in the political economy of standard setting than is currently understood. |
| Keywords: | accounting, FASB, politics, relevance, reliability, standard setting |
| JEL: | D72 D78 G18 K22 L51 M41 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:10-105&r=pol |
| By: | Gabriele Esposito; Eric Guerci; Nobuyuki Hanaki; Xiaoyan Lu; Naoki Watanabe |
| Abstract: | We investigate experimentally whether subjects can learn, from their limited experiences, about relationships between the distribution of votes in a group and associated voting powers in weighted majority voting systems (WMV). Subjects are asked to play two-stage games repeatedly. In the second stage of the game, a group of four subjects bargains over how to divide fixed amount of resources among themselves through the WMV determined in the first stage. In the first stage, two out of four subjects in the group, independently and simultaneously, choose from two options that jointly determine the distribution of a given number of votes among four members. These two subjects face a 2 × 2 matrix that shows the distribution of votes, but not associated voting powers, among four members for each outcome. Therefore, to obtain higher rewards, subjects need to learn about the latter by actually playing the second stage. The matrix subjects face in the first stage changes during the experiment to test subjects' understanding of relationships between distribution of votes and voting power. The results of our experiments suggest that although (a) many subjects learn to choose, in the votes apportionment stage, the option associated with a higher voting power, (b) it is not easy for them to learn the underlying relationships between the two and correctly anticipate their voting powers when they face a new distribution of votes. |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tsu:tewpjp:2010-005&r=pol |
| By: | Tatyana Chesnokova (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | The paper introduces lobby interaction in the ''protection for sale'' framework. Special interest groups provide unconditional contributions where the marginal contribution of a lobby is decreasing in the total sum collected by the government. In contrast to the ''protection for sale'' model, for a given proportion of capital owners in the organized sectors, an increase in the number of lobbies has an impact on trade policy. It is also shown that an increase in the number of lobbies has two opposite effects on each lobby's contribution: a competition effect which lowers a lobby's contribution and a political in?fluence effect which tends to increase its contribution. |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2010-04&r=pol |
| By: | Loukas Balafoutas; Matthias Sutter |
| Abstract: | Recent research has shown that women shy away from competition more often than men. We evaluate experimentally three alternative policy interventions to promote women in competitions: Quotas, Preferential Treatment, and Repetition of the Competition unless a critical number of female winners is reached. We find that Quotas and Preferential Treatment encourage women to compete significantly more often than in a control treatment, while efficiency in selecting the best candidates as winners is not worse. The level of cooperation in a post-competition teamwork task is even higher with successful policy interventions. Hence, policy measures promoting women can have a double dividend. |
| Keywords: | Competition, gender gap, experiment, affirmative action, teamwork, coordination |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2010-12&r=pol |