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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Niklas Potrafke; Felix Rösel |
| Abstract: | Voter turnout has declined in many countries, raising the question of whether electoral institutions increase voter turnout. We exploit an electoral reform in the Austrian state of Burgenland as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of polling station opening hours on voter turnout. The results show that a 10 percent increase in opening hours increased voter turnout by some 0.5 to 0.9 percentage points. The reform also influenced party vote shares. The vote share of the conservative party decreased in the course of the reform, while the vote shares of the other three main parties increased. Conservative voters tend to have an especially strict sense of civic duty and would have participated in the election in any event. Simulations indicate that parliamentary majorities in previous elections would have changed under extended opening hours in favor of the social democratic party. The opening hours of polling stations probably play a more important role in political strategies than recognized to date. |
| Keywords: | Voter turnout; party vote shares; opening hours of polling stations; causal effects; natural experiment; Austria. |
| JEL: | D72 D02 Z18 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_257&r=pol |
| By: | M. Cristina Molinari (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari) |
| Abstract: | We study a family of voting rules inspired by the peculiar protocol used for over 500 years by the Republic of Venice to elect its Doge. Such lot-based indirect elections have two main features: a pool of delegates is chosen by lot out of a general assembly, and then they vote in a single winner election with qualified majority. Under the assumption that the assembly is divided in two factions, we characterise the win probability of the minority and study how it varies with the electoral college size and the winning threshold. We argue that these features promoted a more equitable allocation of political representation and thus may have contributed to the political stability of the Republic of Venice. |
| Keywords: | Voting, minorities' protection, probabilistic proportional representation |
| JEL: | D72 N44 C6 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2018:02&r=pol |
| By: | Wolton, Stephane |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the normative and positive claims regarding the consequences of biased media using a political agency framework with a strategic voter, polarized politicians, and news providers. My model predicts that voters are always better informed with unbiased than biased outlets even when the latter have opposite ideological preferences. However, biased media may improve voter welfare. Contrary to several scholars' fear, partisan news providers are not always bad for democracy. My theoretical findings also have important implications for empirical analyses of the electoral consequences of changes in the media environment. Left-wing and right-wing biased outlets have heterogeneous effects on electoral outcomes which need to be properly accounted for. Existing empirical studies are unlikely to measure the consequences of biased media as researchers never observe and can rarely approximate the adequate counterfactual: elections with unbiased news outlets. |
| Keywords: | biased news, counterfactual, welfare, information |
| JEL: | D72 D78 D82 |
| Date: | 2017–02–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84837&r=pol |
| By: | Ignacio Lago; André Blais |
| Abstract: | We explore how the uniformity of electoral swings in the district vote within countries is affected by the level of economic and political decentralization. We rely on district-level data from OECD countries in two consecutive elections before and after the Great Recession to show that as regional governments exert more influence over the central government, districts deviate less from the overall pattern of change in support of the national incumbent party. The causal mechanism accounting for the effect of decentralization on dynamic nationalization is examined with individual panel data from national elections in Canada and Spain. |
| Keywords: | Decentralization, dynamic nationalization, electoral swing, Great Recession. |
| JEL: | D72 H77 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:1805&r=pol |
| By: | Francesco Drago; Roberto Galbiati; Francesco Sobbrio |
| Abstract: | We study voters’ response to public policies. We exploit a natural experiment arising from the Italian 2006 collective pardon that created idiosyncratic incentives to recidivate across released individuals and municipalities. We show that municipalities where resident pardoned individuals had a higher incentive to recidivate experienced a higher recidivism rate. Moreover, in these municipalities: i) newspapers were more likely to report crime news involving pardoned individuals; ii) voters held worse beliefs on the incumbent national government’s ability to control crime and iii) with respect to the previous elections, the incumbent national government experienced a worse electoral performance in the April 2008 elections relative to the opposition coalition. Our findings indicate that voters keep politicians accountable by conditioning their vote on the observed effects of their policies. |
| Keywords: | accountability, retrospective voting, natural experiment, crime, recidivism, media |
| JEL: | D72 K42 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6826&r=pol |
| By: | Ruth Dassonneville; Michael S. Lewis-Beck |
| Abstract: | Economic growth helps governments get reelected. But does growth, as a valence issue, exhaust the possibilities for the economic vote? What about the impact of inequality, as as a positional economic issue? Can rising economic inequality make or break a government, independent of the country’s growth trajectory? We show, via an examination of 310 elections in established democracies, across time and space, that growth and inequality both matter for incumbent government support. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that both left-wing and right-wing incumbents are held accountable for changes in inequality. While these effects appear unaltered by structural factors such as federalism or the electoral system, their impact seems to depend, to some extent, on whether the country is going through economic hard times. |
| Keywords: | Economic voting; growth; inequality; valence; positional economic voting; social welfare spending. |
| JEL: | D63 D72 H77 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:1804&r=pol |
| By: | Philipp Lergetporer; Marc Piopiunik; Lisa Simon |
| Abstract: | In recent years, Europe has experienced an unprecedented influx of refugees. While natives’ attitudes toward refugees are decisive for the political feasibility of asylum policies, little is known about how these attitudes are shaped by refugees’ characteristics. We conducted survey experiments with more than 5,000 university students in Germany in which we exogenously shifted participants’ beliefs about refugees’ education level through information provision. Consistent with economic theory, we find that beliefs about refugees’ education significantly affect concerns about labor market competition. These concerns, however, do not translate into general attitudes because economic aspects are rather unimportant for forming attitudes toward refugees. |
| Keywords: | refugees, information provision, education, survey experiment, labor market |
| JEL: | H12 H53 I38 D83 D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6832&r=pol |
| By: | Epstein, Gil S.; Heizler, Odelia |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we focus on the effect of belonging to one or more minority groups on the probability of success in primary elections. Using a unique dataset of candidates in Israeli primaries, we find that while being a new immigrant, a woman or a Muslim decreases the chances of electoral success, candidates who belong to two minority groups have an advantage in the race. In some cases of candidates belonging to two minority groups, their chances of success are not only higher than for a candidate from one minority group, but also than for a candidate from the majority. |
| Keywords: | primary elections,success,minority groups,majority groups |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:187&r=pol |
| By: | González, Stéphane; Laruelle, Annick; Solal, Philippe |
| Abstract: | In this article, the question is to select the “best” candidates within a set of candidates when voters cast approval-disapproval ternary ballots. That is, three options are offered to voters: casting a vote “in favor”, a “neutral” vote or a vote “against” each candidate. We first review desirable properties that a rule aggregating approval-disapproval ternary ballots should satisfy. We check whether the rules that have been proposed in the literature satisfy them. Then, we provide comparable axiomatizations of three rules: one is the lexicographical extension of the Approval rule for binary ballots; the second is the lexicographical extension of the Disapproval rule for binary ballots; and the third rule eliminates candidates with more opponents and fewer supporters than other candidates. |
| Keywords: | approval, disapproval, voting, compromise, condorcet, principle |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2017–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehu:ikerla:25274&r=pol |
| By: | Besley, Timothy; Reynal-Querol, Marta |
| Abstract: | Hereditary leadership has been an important feature of the political landscape throughout history. This paper argues that hereditary leadership is like a relational contract which improves policy incentives. We assemble a unique dataset on leaders between 1874 and 2004 in which we classify them as hereditary leaders based on their family history. The core empirical finding is that economic growth is higher in polities with hereditary leaders but only if executive constraints are weak. Moreover, this holds across of a range of specifications. The finding is also mirrored in policy outcomes which affect growth. In addition, we find that hereditary leadership is more likely to come to an end when the growth performance under the incumbent leader is poor. |
| Keywords: | growth; hereditary institutions; political agency |
| JEL: | H11 N40 O11 |
| Date: | 2017–02–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:69615&r=pol |
| By: | Moore, Mick |
| Abstract: | taxation; Sri Lanka; history; Customs Department; Inland Revenue Department; inequality. |
| Keywords: | Governance, |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idq:ictduk:13403&r=pol |
| By: | Mario Chacon (Division of Social Science) |
| Abstract: | Policies aimed at increasing the resources and administrative responsibilities of subnational governments are often proposed as a conict resolution strategy. This paper explores a particular threat to the e¤ectiveness of decentralizing reforms in war-torn countries, namely the capture of local governments by non-state armed actors. These groups are reliant on rents and may increase their violence against local authorities in an attempt to capture local governments in a decentralized system. This relationship between decentralization and conict is explored using subnational-level data from Colombia during the 1990s, when local scal capacity greatly expanded. I exploit a key reform to identify the effect of automatic transfers from the center on conict casualties. The evidence shows that scal transfers are associated with higher murder rates of local authorities and politicians. Moreover, this effect is conditional on the state capacity of localities. These results are robust and consistent with the rent-seeking strategy of paramilitaries and guerrillas during the period. |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nad:wpaper:20170007&r=pol |
| By: | Thomas Kuhn (Chemnitz University of Technology, Department of Economics, Professur VWL IV Finanzwissenschaft); Radomir Pestow (Chemnitz University of Technology, Department of Economics, Professur VWL IV Finanzwissenschaft); Anja Zenker (Chemnitz University of Technology, Department of Economics, Professur VWL IV Finanzwissenschaft) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we discuss the endogenous formation of climate coalitions in an issue-linkage regime. In particular, we propose to build a link to the issue of preferential free trade. Trade privileges exclusively granted to members of the climate coalition work as an incentive mechanism for countries to join in. A multi-stage strategic trade framework is used in which coalition (fringe) countries can dispose of a policy set comprising a discriminatory import-tariff on dirty goods as well as producer emission permits traded on a common (local) permits market. A fairly novel modelling of the preferential free trade area is incorporated which is at the core of our approach. We find strong support for the claim that trade liberalization can promote relatively large and effective climate coalitions compared to the single issue regime. As a policy implication, negotiations on international climate treaties and free trade arrangements should be interlinked. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, International Environmental Agreements, Free Trade, Issue Linkage, Emission Permits |
| JEL: | Q54 Q56 F18 F15 Q58 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tch:wpaper:cep018&r=pol |