nep-pol New Economics Papers
on Positive Political Economics
Issue of 2021‒01‒25
twenty-two papers chosen by
Eugene Beaulieu
University of Calgary

  1. Voting Corrupt Politicians Out of Office? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Paraguay By Rumilda Cañete; Josepa Miquel-Florensa; Stéphane Straub; Karine van der Straeten
  2. Partisan Alignment and Political Corruption: Evidence from a New Democracy By Alexander Stoecker
  3. A Theory of Elite-Biased Democracies By Raouf Boucekkine; Rodolphe Desbordes; Paolo Melindi-Ghidi
  4. Terrorism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from the United States By Baccini, Leonardo; Brodeur, Abel; Nossek, Sean; Shor, Eran
  5. Elections, Political Connections and Cash Holdings: Evidence from Local Assemblies By David Adeabah; Charles Andoh; Simplice A. Asongu; Isaac Akomea-Frimpong
  6. Terrorism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from the United States By Baccini, Leonardo; Brodeur, Abel; Nossek, Sean; Shor, Eran
  7. Appropriate Institutions? Traditional Governance and Public Goods Provision in Oaxaca, Mexico By Gustavo J. Bobonis; Juan C. Chaparro; Marco Gonzalez-Navarro; Marta Rubio-Codina
  8. Autonomy Of Subnational Party Systems: Comparative Analysis Of Federations By Rostislav Turovsky; Elizabeth Luizidis
  9. Political Institutions and Health Expenditure By Johannes Blum; Florian Dorn; Axel Heuer
  10. Political Constraints and Sovereign Default Premia By Nirvana Mitra
  11. A political economy of loose means-testing in targeted social programs By Cremer, Helmuth; Klimaviciute, Justina; Pestieau, Pierre
  12. The political economy of public research, or why some governments commit to research more than others By Andrea Filippetti; Antonio Vezzani
  13. The Political Cost of Lockdown's Enforcement By Fazio, Andrea; Reggiani, Tommaso G.; Sabatini, Fabio
  14. Subnational borrowing and bailouts: when the federal government looks at the votes (di¤erently) and its borrowing matters. By Diego Martínez-López
  15. Do Shifts in Late-Counted Votes Signal Fraud? Evidence From Bolivia By Idrobo, Nicolás; Kronick, Dorothy; Rodriguez, Francisco
  16. Estimating the effect of Democracy, Governance and Militarisation on Peace in Africa By Chimere O. Iheonu; Kingsley O. Odo; Davidmac O. Ekeocha
  17. Persuading communicating voters By Kerman, Toygar; Tenev, Anastas P.
  18. Be kind or take it on the chin? Political narratives, pandemics, and social distancing By Kartik Anand; Prasanna Gai; Edmund Lou; Sherry X Wu
  19. Does the Education Level of Refugees Affect Natives’ Attitudes? By Philipp Lergetporer; Marc Piopiunik; Lisa Simon
  20. Homo moralis goes to the voting booth: coordination and information aggregation By Ingela Alger; Jean-François Laslier
  21. Political conflict, social inequality and electoral cleavages in Central-Eastern Europe, 1990-2018 By Attila Lindner; Filip Novokmet; Thomas Piketty; Tomasz Zawisza
  22. Female teachers effect on male pupils' voting behavior and preference formation By Eiji Yamamura

  1. By: Rumilda Cañete; Josepa Miquel-Florensa (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Stéphane Straub (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Karine van der Straeten (IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse)
    Abstract: This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that giving voters more power – both formally through the use of more "open" electoral systems and informally through easier access to information on politicians' wrongdoings – will necessarily result in them voting corrupt politicians out of office. Focusing on a comparison between closed-list and open-list proportional representation systems, we theoretically show that opening the lists is likely to generate a large shift of vote shares in favor of the incumbent parties, which in many countries happen to be the most corrupt. We design a survey experiment to test these predictions in Paraguay and find strong supporting evidence. We do not find in our context that the lack of information is a major obstacle preventing voters from voting out corrupt politicians; if anything, under the more open system, supporters of the incumbent party tend to cast more votes for politicians with a recent history of corruption.
    Keywords: Corruption,Electoral systems,Information
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03047130&r=all
  2. By: Alexander Stoecker (University of Siegen)
    Abstract: I analyze the link between partisan alignment of local politicians and the incidence of political corruption, using novel hand-collected data on local political corruption in Ghana. In line with political ambition theory, I hypothesize that local politicians aligned with the national government have incentives to control fiscal irregularities within their localities in order to appease their national party leaders and preserve their party’s reputation. The empirical analysis, based on 205 districts observed over the period 2013-2018, indeed suggests significantly lower levels of political corruption in aligned districts. Partisan alignment reduces corruption by 2.0 percentage points, equivalent to roughly 50 percent of the 3.9 percent mean-level of non-aligned districts. This effect is more pronounced in districts with (i) less competitive local legislative elections, (ii) better financial endowments, and (iii) female local parliamentarians. It appears that high levels of political polarization and intense party competition, as observed in Ghana, are important explanations for this finding.
    Keywords: corruption, political alignment, local public finance, intergovernmental transfers, political career concerns, Africa
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202101&r=all
  3. By: Raouf Boucekkine (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - AMU - Aix Marseille Université, UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain); Rodolphe Desbordes (SKEMA BS - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Paolo Melindi-Ghidi (EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - AMU - Aix Marseille Université, UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain)
    Abstract: Elite-biased democracies are those democracies in which former political incumbents and their allies coordinate to impose part of the autocratic institutional rules in the new political regime. We document that this type of democratic transition is much more prevalent than the emergence of pure (popular) democracies in which the majority decides the new political rules. We then develop a theoretical model explaining how an elitebiased democracy may arise in an initially autocratic country. To this end, we extend the benchmark political transition model of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) along two essential directions. First, population is split into majority versus minority groups under the initial autocratic regime. Second, the minority is an insider as it benefits from a more favourable redistribution by the autocrat. We derive conditions under which elite-biased democracies emerge and characterise them, in particular with respect to pure democracies.
    Keywords: elite-biased democracy,institutional change,minority/majority,economic favouritism,inequality,revolution
    Date: 2020–12–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03044565&r=all
  4. By: Baccini, Leonardo (McGill University); Brodeur, Abel (University of Ottawa); Nossek, Sean (McGill University); Shor, Eran (McGill University)
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of terrorism on voting behavior in the United States. We rely on an exhaustive list of terror attacks over the period 1970-2016 and exploit the inherent randomness of the success or failure of terror attacks to identify the political impacts of terrorism. We first confirm that the success of terror attacks is plausibly random by showing that it is orthogonal to potential confounders. We then show that on average successful attacks have no effect on presidential and non-presidential elections. As a benchmark, we also rely on a more naïve identification strategy using all the counties not targeted by terrorists as a comparison group. We show that using this naïve identification strategy leads to strikingly different results overestimating the effect of terror attacks on voting behavior. Overall, our results indicate that terrorism has less of an influence on voters than is usually thought.
    Keywords: terrorism, voting behavior
    JEL: D72 D74
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14034&r=all
  5. By: David Adeabah (Legon, Ghana); Charles Andoh (Legon, Ghana); Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé, Cameroon); Isaac Akomea-Frimpong (Sydney University, Australia)
    Abstract: We examine the relationship between elections, political connections, and cash holdings in Ghanaian local assemblies. Using a panel dataset of 179local assemblies over a period 2012 to 2017, a panel regression and the generalized method of moments estimation techniques was employed for the analysis. We find that local assemblies hold less cash during election years, which suggests that election may be one of the potential factors to mitigate agency conflict in weak governance environment. Further, we demonstrate that local assemblies that have political connections hold less cash; however, political uncertainty makes these entities conducive to agency problems than their non-connected peers because they hold more cash. Additional analysis indicates that one year prior to elections, managerial conservatism kicks-in and leads managers to hold more cash in local assemblies that have political connections, which continues and becomes more pronounced in election years. Our results have implications for regulations on the cash management practices of local assemblies.
    Keywords: agency problem; cash holdings; generalized method of moments;panel regression; political connections
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:21/004&r=all
  6. By: Baccini, Leonardo; Brodeur, Abel; Nossek, Sean; Shor, Eran
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of terrorism on voting behavior in the United States. We rely on an exhaustive list of terror attacks over the period 1970-2016 and exploit the inherent randomness of the success or failure of terror attacks to identify the political impacts of terrorism. We first confirm that the success of terror attacks is plausibly random by showing that it is orthogonal to potential confounders. We then show that on average successful attacks have no effect on presidential and non-presidential elections. As a benchmark, we also rely on a more naïve identification strategy using all the counties not targeted by terrorists as a comparison group. We show that using this naïve identification strategy leads to strikingly different results overestimating the effect of terror attacks on voting behavior. Overall, our results indicate that terrorism has less of an in uence on voters than is usually thought.
    Keywords: terrorism,voting behavior
    JEL: D72 D74
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:755&r=all
  7. By: Gustavo J. Bobonis; Juan C. Chaparro; Marco Gonzalez-Navarro; Marta Rubio-Codina
    Abstract: What are the consequences of the adoption of traditional governance institutions among Indigenous groups for local government affairs? We study the 1995 Usos y Costumbres traditional governance reform in the state of Oaxaca, which legitimized these structures in a subset of its municipalities. We show that the degree of ethnolinguistic polarization between residents of outlying communities and residents of municipal capitals is an important barrier to the former’s political representation in local elections. In terms of public good provision, villages of ethnic minorities are less likely to gain electric service but more likely to gain sewerage services and public schooling.
    Keywords: traditional governance; Indigenous groups; ethnic heterogeneity; political representation; public goods provision
    JEL: D72 D74 J15 O15 O17 O18
    Date: 2021–01–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-685&r=all
  8. By: Rostislav Turovsky (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Elizabeth Luizidis (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: This research is based on theories of federalized party systems, second-order elections and nationalization of party system comparing long-established democratic federations in terms of actual autonomy of their subnational party systems. The study shows that despite obvious prerequisites for subnational autonomy (such as federal institutions, different timing of elections, freedom to establish regional parties and blocs) most federations have created solidly nationalized party systems. Nevertheless, we explore striking differences among the federations in terms of presence and strength of regional parties, while our thorough comparative analysis of electoral turnout and parties support at federal and regional levels of elections reveals that federations are very different and sometimes unique. Also, we see that the theory of second-order elections does not work consistently which in our point of view means the decisive role of regional agenda and emphasizes the presence of national parties consistently inclined to local politics. We conclude that the development of partially autonomous subnational party systems and biases of electoral outcomes in federal and regional elections depend on the historical evolution of political institutions in the state rather than create similar patterns across the federations
    Keywords: second-order elections, nationalization of party system, federalism, subnational elections, federalized party system.
    JEL: D72
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:77/ps/2021&r=all
  9. By: Johannes Blum; Florian Dorn; Axel Heuer
    Abstract: We examine how political institutions influence health expenditure by using a panel of 151 developing and developed countries for the years 2000 to 2015 and four measures of democracy. Our pooled OLS analysis shows that democracies have 20–30% higher government health expenditure relative to GDP than their autocratic counterparts. An instrumental variable approach which exploits the regional diffusion of democracy confirms the positive effect of democracy on government health expenditure. Panel fixed effects and event study models also suggest a positive within-country effect of democratization on government health expenditure within a short period after regime transition. Democratic rule, however, does not turn out to significantly influence private health expenditure compared to autocracies. We conclude that democracies may care more for their citizens and strive to decrease inequalities in the access to health care.
    Keywords: Democracy, panel data, instrumental variable, development, health expenditure
    JEL: I15 I18 H51 P50 C23 C26
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_345&r=all
  10. By: Nirvana Mitra (Department Of Economics, Shiv Nadar University)
    Abstract: I study the relationship between political constraints and the probability of sovereign default using a dynamic model of fiscal policy augmented with legislative bargaining and default. I find that the tightness of political constraints and default probability are inversely related if the output cost of default is not too high. The model government consists of legislators who bargain over multidimensional fiscal policy, including over a local public good that benefits only the regions they represent. Tighter political constraints are equivalent to more legislators with veto power over fiscal policies. In this case, a default implies that the released resources need to be distributed among more regions as local public goods. Thus, a smaller benefit accrues to each region, decreasing the incentive to default. However, if default is too costly, even relatively unconstrained governments default less frequently because the individual share of cost is too high. Empirical evidence from South American countries is consistent with this result. I calibrate the infinite horizon model to Argentina. It confirms the inverse relationship. A counterfactual exercise with even higher political constraints shows that the default by Argentina in 2001 could not be avoided.
    Keywords: Sovereign debt, Default risk, Interest rates, Political economy, Minimum winning coalition, Endogenous borrowing constraints.
    JEL: D72 E43 F34 E62 F41
    Date: 2021–01–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:alr:wpaper:2021-01&r=all
  11. By: Cremer, Helmuth; Klimaviciute, Justina; Pestieau, Pierre
    Abstract: This paper studies the political sustainability of programs that are targeted towards the poor. Given that the poor to whom these programs cater do not constitute a majority, we show that for their own good it pays to let the middle class benefit from them in a random way. This approach mimics the actual institutional arrangements whereby middle-class individuals feel that they can successfully apply to the programs. We consider a two stage decision process: first a Rawlsian government chooses the probability at which the middle class is allowed to benefit from a given program; then, majority voting determines the level of benefit and the rate of contribution. At the first, constitutional stage, the government cannot commit to a specific level of taxes and benefit but anticipates that these are set by majority voting in the second stage.
    Keywords: Targeted transfers; Political support; Redistribution paradox.
    Date: 2021–01–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:125089&r=all
  12. By: Andrea Filippetti (Italian National Research Council (CNR)); Antonio Vezzani (b University Roma Tre, Department of Economics)
    Abstract: Regardless a generalised consensus about the economic benefits of public research, it has been following different patterns across countries. Why do some governments invest in public research more than others? By relying on political economy literature, we frame investment in public research as a choice shaped by the political institutions of countries. We find robust relationships between public-funded research and political institutions. Countries with parliamentary forms of government, proportional electoral rules and bicameralism legislatures spend more in research; the presence of encompassing civic society organizations also encourages public research. Majoritarian-like reforms which reduce representation might discourage forward government commitment harming the longterm economic growth.
    Keywords: public research; political economy; R&D; consensual democracy; public choice; civil organizations
    JEL: O31 O38 P16 P48
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0257&r=all
  13. By: Fazio, Andrea (Sapienza University of Rome); Reggiani, Tommaso G. (Cardiff University); Sabatini, Fabio (Sapienza University of Rome)
    Abstract: We study how the political cost of enforcing a lockdown in response to the COVID- 19 outbreak relates to citizens' propensity for altruistic punishment in Italy, the early epicenter of the pandemic. Approval for the government's management of the crisis decreases with the amount of the penalties that individuals would like to see enforced for lockdown violations. People supporting stronger punishment are more likely to consider the government's reaction to the pandemic as insufficient. However, after the establishment of tougher sanctions for risky behaviors, we observe a sudden flip in support for government. Higher amounts of the desired fines become associated with a higher probability of considering the government's policy response as too extreme, lower trust in government, and lower confidence in the truthfulness of the officially provided information. Lock-downs entail a political cost that helps explain why democracies may adopt epidemiologically suboptimal policies.
    Keywords: COVID-19, lockdown, law enforcement, altruistic punishment, incumbent support, trust in institutions, Italy
    JEL: D12 D83 I12 K40
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14032&r=all
  14. By: Diego Martínez-López
    Abstract: Sometimes it is dificult to find a rationale for episodes of bailouts in which the political motivations of the federal government are not clear cut. In other cases, the soft budget constraint of subnational governments (SNGs) seems to be based on unlimited federal resources. This paper aims to shed some light on both issues taking as a reference the workhorse model developed by Goodspeed (2002). The principal change in its basic assumptions lies in allowing the federal government to borrow to finance its grants to SNGs. The results indicate that the way in which the federal government translates voters preferences into electoral probabilities is crucial to determine grants. Moreover, the SNGs do not borrow excessively. When the model is extended to consider risk Premium spreads in the SNGs debt and the option of transferring part of their borrowing to the upper level, the main outcomes remain.
    Keywords: bailout, borrowing, federal government, political economy, intertemporal consistency.
    JEL: H72 H74 H77
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:2101&r=all
  15. By: Idrobo, Nicolás; Kronick, Dorothy; Rodriguez, Francisco
    Abstract: Surprising trends in late-counted votes can spark conflict. When late-counted votes led to a narrow incumbent victory in Bolivia last year, fraud accusations followed—with dramatic political consequences. We study the pro-incumbent shift in vote share as the tally progressed, finding that we can explain it without invoking fraud. Two observable characteristics, rurality and region, account for most of the trend. And what looked like a late-breaking surge in the incumbent’s vote share—which electoral observers presented as evidence of foul play—was actually an artifact of methodological and coding errors. Our findings underscore the importance of documenting innocuous explanations for differences between early- and late-counted votes.
    Keywords: Elections, Regression Discontinuity, Electoral Observation
    JEL: H83
    Date: 2020–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:105118&r=all
  16. By: Chimere O. Iheonu (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria); Kingsley O. Odo (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria); Davidmac O. Ekeocha (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria)
    Abstract: Peace has been deemed paramount to socioeconomic progress and economic development across nations. It is for this reason nations strive to improve the peaceful coexistence of citizens. This study investigates the effect of democracy, governance and militarisation on peace in 43 African countries for the year 2018 in a cross sectional framework. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS), the Tobit regression and the Quantile Regression (QR) were employed as estimation strategies. The empirical results firstly reveal that democracy increases peace in Africa, particularly in countries where the initial level of peace is at its highest level. Secondly, militarisation of Africa reduces peace in the region only in countries where the initial level of peace is at its highest level. Thirdly, the influence of governance on peace in Africa depends majorly on the measure of governance utilised. The control of corruption, government effectiveness and regulatory quality increase peace where the initial level of peace is at its lowest level. Political stability increases peace across the entire quantiles utilised while rule of law increases peace in countries where the initial level of peace is low. In conclusion, governance in general increases peace in the countries where initial level of peace is very low. Policy recommendations based on these findings are discussed.
    Keywords: Democracy; Governance; Militarisation; Peace; Africa
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abh:wpaper:20/046&r=all
  17. By: Kerman, Toygar (General Economics 0 (Onderwijs), RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research); Tenev, Anastas P. (General Economics 0 (Onderwijs), RS: GSBE Theme Conflict & Cooperation)
    Abstract: This paper studies a multiple-receiver Bayesian persuasion model, where a sender communicates with receivers who have homogeneous beliefs and aligned preferences. The sender wants to implement a proposal and commits to a communication strategy which sends private (possibly) correlated messages to the receivers, who are in an exogenous and commonly known network. Receivers can observe their neighbors’ private messages and after updating their beliefs, vote sincerely on the proposal. We examine how networks of shared information affect the sender’s gain from persuasion and find that in many cases it is not restricted by the additional information provided by the receivers’ neighborhoods. Perhaps surprisingly, the sender’s gain from persuasion is not monotonically decreasing with the density of the network.
    JEL: C72 D72 D82 D85
    Date: 2021–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2021003&r=all
  18. By: Kartik Anand; Prasanna Gai; Edmund Lou; Sherry X Wu
    Abstract: How does a political leader’s messaging during a pandemic influence social distancing by citizens? We model the strategic choice of narrative in a beauty contest setting where the leader seeks to eliminate the disease. The leader’s resolve to eliminate the disease affects her narrative in a non-linear way. A resolute leader adopts a highly partisan narrative that identifies strongly with her followers, albeit at the expense of her payoff, while an ambivalent leader with low resolve for eliminating the disease is less partisan. Our result speaks to the debate on the voluntary acceptance of limits to individual liberty during a pandemic.
    Keywords: Beauty contests, pandemic, Covid-19, political narratives, leadership
    JEL: D7 D84 D91 H12 I12
    Date: 2020–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2020-106&r=all
  19. By: Philipp Lergetporer; Marc Piopiunik; Lisa Simon
    Abstract: In recent years, Europe has experienced a large 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 information about refugees’ characteristics. We conducted a survey experiment with a representative sample of more than 4,000 adults in Germany in which we randomly provide information about refugees’ education level. Information provision strongly increases respondents’ beliefs that refugees are well educated. The information also increases labor market competition concerns, decreases fiscal burden concerns, and positively affects general attitudes toward refugees. We perform several robustness analyses in additional experiments with more than 5,000 university students. In sum, we show that correcting misperceptions about refugees’ education level has profound effects on natives’ attitudes.
    Keywords: Refugees, information provision, education, survey experiment, labor market
    JEL: F22 J24 D83 C91
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_346&r=all
  20. By: Ingela Alger (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, Institute for Advanced Study Toulouse); Jean-François Laslier (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)
    Abstract: This paper revisits two classical problems in the theory of voting-viz. the divided majority problem and the strategic revelation of information by majority vote-in the light of evolutionarily founded partial Kantian morality. It is shown that, compared to electorates consisting of purely self-interested voters, such Kantian morality helps voters solve coordination problems and improves the information aggregation properties of equilibria, even for modest levels of morality.
    Keywords: Condorcet jury theorem,divided majority problem,voting,Homo moralis,Kantian morality,social dilemmas
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03031118&r=all
  21. By: Attila Lindner (UCL - University College of London [London]); Filip Novokmet (University of Bonn, WIL - World Inequality Lab); Thomas Piketty (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab); Tomasz Zawisza (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
    Abstract: This paper analyses the electoral cleavages in three Central European countries countries-the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland-since the fall of communism until today. In all three countries, the left has seen a prolonged decline in support. On the other hand, the "populist" parties increased their support and recently attained power in each country. We relate this to specific trajectories of post-communist transition. Former communist parties in Hungary and Poland transformed themselves into socialdemocratic parties. These parties' pro-market policies prevented them from establishing themselves predominantly among a lower-income electorate. Meanwhile, the liberal right in the Czech Republic and Poland became representative of both high-income and high-educated voters. This has opened up space for populist parties and influenced their character, assuming more 'nativist' outlook in Poland and Hungary and more 'centrist' in the Czech Republic.
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03047677&r=all
  22. By: Eiji Yamamura
    Abstract: This study examines the influence of learning in a female teacher homeroom class in elementary school on pupils' voting behavior later in life, using independently collected individual-level data. Further, we evaluate its effect on preference for women's participation in the workplace in adulthood. Our study found that having a female teacher in the first year of school makes individuals more likely to vote for female candidates, and to prefer policy for female labor participation in adulthood. However, the effect is only observed among males, and not female pupils. These findings offer new evidence for the female socialization hypothesis.
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2101.08487&r=all

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