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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero |
| Abstract: | This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence. To answer these questions, a panel survey conducted before and after the elections is combined with external indicators of electoral violence. We find that political parties targeted vote-buying towards specific groups to weaken the support of their political rivals and to mobilize their own supporters. Furthermore, parties instigated violence strategically in areas where they were less likely to win. Although the victims of violence would prefer that parties are no longer allowed to organize in ethnic or religious lines, they are more likely to identify in ethnic terms, support the use of violence and avoid relying on the police to resolve disputes. The overall findings suggest an increased risk of electoral-violence reoccurring. |
| Keywords: | Political competition; electoral violence; vote-buying; election fraud; ethnic identity; Kenya |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2012-16&r=pol |
| By: | Saint-Paul, Gilles; Ticchi, Davide; Vindigni, Andrea |
| Abstract: | We develop a theory of endogenous political entrenchment in a simple two-party dynamic model of income redistribution with probabilistic voting. A partially self-interested left-wing party may implement (entrenchment) policies reducing the income of its own constituency, the lower class, in order to consolidate its future political power. Such policies increase the net gain that low-skill agents obtain from income redistribution, which only the Left (but not the Right) can credibly commit to provide, and therefore may help offsetting a potential future aggregate ideological shock averse to the left-wing party. We demonstrate that political entrenchment by the Left occurs only if incumbency rents are sufficiently high and that low-skill citizens may vote for this party even though they rationally expect the adoption of these policies. We also discuss the case where the left-wing party may have the incentive to ex-ante commit to not pursue entrenchment policies once in power. Finally, we show that, in a more general framework, the entrenchment policies can be implemented also by the right-wing party. The comparative statics analyzes the effects of state capacity, a positive bias of voters for one party and income inequality on the incentives of the incumbent party to pursue entrenchment policies. The importance of our theory for constitutionally legislated term limits is also discussed. The theory sheds light on why left-wing parties or politicians often support liberal immigration policies of unskilled workers, are sometime in favor of free trade with less developed economies and of globalization more generally, or fail to reform plainly "dysfunctional" public educational systems damaging the lower classes. |
| Keywords: | Political entrenchment; constituencies; inequality; inefficient redistribution; checks and balances; political rents; state fiscal capacity. |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uca:ucapdv:169&r=pol |
| By: | Ali T. Akarca (Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago); Aysit Tansel (Department of Economics, METU) |
| Abstract: | The two major earthquakes which struck northwestern Turkey in 1999,caused enormous amounts of death and destruction, and exposed rampant government corruption involving construction and zoning code violations, as a factor magnifying the disaster. The opposition parties and one of the incumbent parties which participated in previous national governments and held power in current and past municipal administrations were responsible for that. The other two incumbent parties came to power only a short time before the earthquakes and controlled almost none of the local administrations in the disaster zone. They on the other hand, were responsible for the incompetence shown in providing relief, for involvement in corruption related to those efforts, and for failing to prosecute the businessmen who constructed the shoddy buildings and the corrupt officials who permitted them.How voters responded to these in the 2002 parliamentary elections is investigated, using crossprovincial data, controlling for other social, political and economic factors. The fact that different groups of parties were responsible for different types of corruption and mismanagement provided us with a unique data to differentiate between voter responses to corruption and incompetence, and to corruption which has occurred before and after the earthquakes. Our results show that voters punished all of the political parties which participated in governments during the previous decade. The party in charge of the ministry responsible for disaster relief, and parties that controlled more of the city administrations in the quake zone were blamed more. The newly formed Justice and Development Party (AKP) was the main beneficiary of the votes lost by these parties. Our results corroborate the view in the corruption literature that voters react drastically only when the corruption is massive, the information on it highly-credible and well-publicized, involves large number of political parties, not accompanied by competent governance, and a non-corrupt alternative is available. |
| Keywords: | Turkey, Natural disaster, Earthquake, Corruption, Government performance, Elections, Voter Behavior, Party preference |
| JEL: | D72 D73 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:1202&r=pol |
| By: | Shuyun May Li, Solmaz Moslehi, Siew Ling Yew |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs a simple overlapping generations model to examine how the choice of public and private health expenditure is affected by preferences and economic factors under majority voting. In the model,agents with heterogeneous income decide how much to consume, save, and invest in private health care, and vote for the income tax to be used to finance public health. Agents survival probabilities are endogenously determined by a CES composite of public and private health expenditure. For the two special cases that public and private health are complements or perfect substitutes, we show that the voting equilibrium is unique and locally stable. For the general case, we calibrate the model to Canadian data to conduct a quantitative analysis.Our results suggest that the public-private mix of health expenditure is quite sensitive to the degree of substitutability between private and public health and the relative e¤ectiveness of public and private health. Using a sample of advanced democratic countries, we further infer these two parameters and construct the shares of public health in total health expenditure for each country, and find that the predicted values match the data quite well. |
| Keywords: | Public-private mix, Health expenditure, Majority voting, Overlapping generations model |
| JEL: | D7 H51 I1 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1157&r=pol |
| By: | Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter |
| Abstract: | The note briefly outlines a new model for the explanation of US presidential elections, founded on (a) recent economic growth and (b) a measure of what may be called “’the cost of ruling”. The former is based in changes in real disposable income for the period following a mid-term election, while the latter combines factors of incumbency and terms-in-office. The model is applied to data from the US presidential elections 1932-2008 and has considerable explanatory power for the variation in the incumbent party’s candidate’s share of the two-party vote (R2=0.74). The model is controlled against a number of other frequent explanations and is found to be quite robust. When augmented with approval ratings for incumbent presidents, the explanatory power increases to 83 pct. and only incorrectly calls one of the last 15 US presidential elections. Applied to the 2012 election as a forecasting model the prediction is that President Obama will win 49,6 pct. of the two-party vote. |
| Keywords: | Economic voting; US presidential elections |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2012–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:42464&r=pol |
| By: | Rogers, Todd (Harvard University); Middleton, Joel A. (NYU) |
| Abstract: | Ballot initiatives are consequential and common, with total spending on initiative campaigns in the US rivaling that of Presidential campaigns. Observational studies using regression approaches on observational data have alternately found that initiative campaign spending cannot affect initiative outcomes, can increase the number of votes rejecting (but not approving) initiatives, or can affect outcomes in either direction. We report the first well-powered precinct-randomized field experiment to evaluate an initiative advocacy campaign. We find that campaigns can influence both rejection and approval of initiatives by changing how citizens vote, as opposed to by influencing turnout or ballot completion. Our experiment (involving around 18% of Oregon households in 2008) studied a statewide mail program conducted by a Political Action Committee. Results further suggest that two initiatives would have passed if not for the advocacy campaign to reject them. We discuss implications for theories about direct democracy, campaign finance, and campaign effects. |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp12-049&r=pol |
| By: | Matthias Dahm (Department d'Economia and CREIP, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain); Amihai Glazer (Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 USA) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the puzzle of why redistributive legislation, which benefits a small minority, may pass with overwhelming majorities. It models a legislature in which the same agenda setter serves for two periods, showing how he can exploit a legislature (completely) in the first period by promising future benefits to legislators who support him. In equilibrium, a large majority of legislators vote for the first-period proposal because they thereby maintain the chance of belonging to the minimum winning coalition in the future. Legislators may therefore approve policies by large majorities, or even unanimously, that benefit few, or even none, of them. The results are robust; but institutional arrangements (such as entitlements) can reduce the agenda setter's power by reducing his discretion to reward and punish legislators, and rules (such as sequential voting) can increase individual legislators' incentives to resist exploitation. |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2012-11-ccr&r=pol |
| By: | Ahmed S. Mahmud; Giacomo De Luca; Juan F. Vargas |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper develops a simple model to investigate how resource-driven economic booms shape the equilibrium political institutions of resource-rich societies and in uence the likelihood of experiencing civil war. In our model a strong government apparatus favors property rights protection but also makes the state more powerful and hence may induce predatory autocratic regimes over democracy. We characterize the parameter space of each political outcome in terms of the type of the available natural resources. Economic booms based on resources that are privately exploited empower the citizens and tend to ease democratic transitions. In contrast, booms based on resources exploited by the state tend to favor more dictatorial regimes. Finally, economic booms based on resources that can be exploited either by the state or by private citizens incite preemptive actions by both parties that may result in civil war. We discuss the predictions of the model using historical and contemporary examples. |
| Date: | 2012–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:010082&r=pol |
| By: | Kyriazis, Nicholas; Economou, Emmanouel/Marios/Lazaros |
| Abstract: | In the present essay we introduce the concept of macroculture as a complex of mutually supporting values, norms and beliefs in various areas of human activity, like war, religion, politics, athletics, etc. in a model. Then, by applying the concept of bounded rationality, we analyse how some macrocultures that are favorable or the ‘precondition’ for the emergence of democracy and institutions develop, in particular property rights, that foster economic development. We analyze this for Bronze Age and Archaic Greece, as being the historical case where such a macroculture favorable to democracy and stable property rights first emerged. Our main findings indicate that during Mycenaean and Archaic age period, the emergence of various elements of macroculture, in warfare, religion, city-state environment and athletic games evolved into similar proto-democratic values leading to the establishment of democracy as a political phenomenon in Classical Greece. |
| Keywords: | Macroculture; Democracy; Property rights; Ancient Greece |
| JEL: | P41 Z12 P48 N40 |
| Date: | 2012–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:42399&r=pol |