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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Villegas-Bauer, Germán; Juncosa, Federico |
| Abstract: | The features of electoral systems can affect electoral outcomes even for fixed societal preferences. We analyze a quasi-experiment around a staggered change from a paper ballot to an electronic ballot system, which reduces the cost of split-ticket voting. A high cost to split the ticket favors straight-ticket voting, i.e., choosing the same party in all electoral races. If voters care the most about a single-seat race and if they are voting straighttickets, then the single-seat race drives the decision about which party to vote on all races. Therefore, strategic voting considerations on the single-seat race have spillovers to other races, negatively affecting small parties even in races with a proportional representation system. We show how the reduction in the cost to split the ticket increases the number of split-ticket votes and improves the performance of small parties in multiple-seat races. This results in higher political competition. |
| Keywords: | Ciencia y tecnología, Democracia, Desarrollo institucional, Logística, Tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TIC), |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1991&r=pol |
| By: | Billings, Stephen B. (University of Colorado, Boulder); Braun, Noah (University of Pittsburgh); Jones, Daniel (University of Pittsburgh); Shi, Ying (Syracuse University) |
| Abstract: | In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down a core provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that enabled federal electoral oversight in select jurisdictions. We study whether this decision disproportionately impacted ballot access for Black and Hispanic registered voters. We use a rich dataset on voter behavior for the universe of registered voters combined with Census block-level sociodemographic attributes to document a decrease in turnout for Black, relative to white, individuals. These effects are concentrated in counties with larger Black and Hispanic populations, consistent with strategic targeting of voter suppression. |
| Keywords: | Voting Rights Act, political participation |
| JEL: | D72 J15 K16 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15829&r=pol |
| By: | Benjamin Marx (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Vincent Pons (Harvard University [Cambridge], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research); Vincent Rollet (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | In most national elections, voters face a key choice between continuity and change. Electoral turnovers occur when the incumbent candidate or party fails to win reelection. To understand how turnovers affect national outcomes, we study the universe of presidential and parliamentary elections held since 1945. We document the prevalence of turnovers over time and we estimate their effects on economic performance, trade, human development, conflict, and democracy. Using a close-elections regression discontinuity design (RDD) across countries, we show that turnovers improve country performance. These effects are not driven by differences in the characteristics of challengers, or by the fact that challengers systematically increase the level of government intervention in the economy. Electing new leaders leads to more policy change, it improves governance, and it reduces perceived corruption, consistent with the expectation that recently elected leaders exert more effort due to stronger reputation concerns. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Turnovers, Democracy, Institutions |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03812816&r=pol |
| By: | Joseph Campbell; Alessandra Casella; Lucas de Lara; Victoria Mooers; Dilip Ravindran |
| Abstract: | Liquid Democracy is a voting system touted as the golden medium between representative and direct democracy: decisions are taken by referendum, but voters can delegate their votes as they wish. The outcome can be superior to simple majority voting, but even when experts are correctly identified, delegation must be used sparely. We ran two very different experiments: one follows a tightly controlled lab design; the second is a perceptual task run online where the precision of information is ambiguous. In both experiments, delegation rates are high, and Liquid Democracy underperforms both universal voting and the simpler option of allowing abstention. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2212.09715&r=pol |
| By: | Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We study electoral campaigns over the long run, through the lens of their spending. In particular, we ask whether changing media technologies and electoral environments impacted patterns of spending and their correlation with electoral results. To do so, we build a novel exhaustive dataset on general elections in the United Kingdom from 1857 to 2017, which includes information on campaign spending (itemized by expense categories), electoral outcomes and socio-demographic characteristics for 69, 042 election-constituency candidates. We start by providing new insights on the history of British political campaigns, in particular the growing importance of advertising material, including via digital means, to the detriment of paid staff and electoral meetings. We then show that there is a strong positive correlation between expenditures and votes, and that overall the magnitude of this relationship has strongly increased since the 1880s, with a peak in the last quarter of the 20th century. We link these transformations to changes in the conduct of campaigns, and to the introduction of new information technologies. We show in particular that the expansion of local radio and broadband Internet increased the sensitivity of the electoral results to differences in campaign spending. These results encourage greater contextualization in the drafting of campaign finance regulations. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Campaign finance, Electoral expenditures, Information technologies |
| Date: | 2021–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03384143&r=pol |
| By: | Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies electoral campaigns over the long run, through the lens of their spending. In particular, we ask whether changing media technologies and electoral environments have impacted patterns of campaign spending, and their correlation with electoral results. To do so, we build a novel exhaustive dataset on general elections in the United Kingdom from 1857 to 2017, which includes information on campaign spending (itemized by expense categories), electoral outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics for 69, 042 election-constituency-candidates. We start by providing new insights on the history of British political campaigns, documenting in particular the growing importance of advertising material (including via digital means), to the detriment of paid staff and electoral meetings. Using a saturated fixed effects model, we then show that there is a strong positive correlation between expenditures and votes, and that overall the magnitude of this relationship has strongly increased since the 1880s, peaking in the last quarter of the 20th century. We link these transformations to changes in the conduct of campaigns, and to the introduction of new information technologies. We show in particular that the expansion of local radio and broadband Internet increased the sensitivity of the electoral results to differences in campaign spending. |
| Abstract: | Cet article étudie les campagnes électorales sur le long terme, à travers le prisme de leurs dépenses. En particulier, nous investiguons l'impact des évolutions majeures dans les technologies de l'information et les contextes électoraux sur les niveaux, allocations et influences des dépenses des candidats. Pour ce faire, nous construisons un nouvel ensemble de données exhaustif sur les élections générales au Royaume-Uni de 1857 à 2017, qui comprend des informations sur les dépenses de campagne (détaillées par catégories de dépenses), les résultats électoraux et les caractéristiques sociodémographiques de 69042 candidats-élections-circonscriptions. Nous commençons par apporter de nouveaux éclairages sur l'histoire des campagnes politiques britanniques, en documentant notamment l'importance croissante du matériel publicitaire (y compris via des moyens numériques), au détriment du personnel rémunéré et des meetings électoraux. À l'aide d'un modèle à effets fixes, nous montrons ensuite qu'il existe une forte corrélation positive entre les dépenses des candidats et les résultats électoraux de ceux ci, et que, dans l'ensemble, la magnitude de cette relation a fortement augmenté depuis les années 1880, pour atteindre un pic dans le dernier quart du XXe siècle. Nous lions ces transformations à des changements dans les stratégies de campagne et à l'introduction de nouvelles technologies de l'information. Nous montrons en particulier que l'expansion de la radio locale et de l'ADSL a augmenté la sensibilité des résultats électoraux aux différences de dépenses de campagne. |
| Keywords: | Electoral campaigns, Campaign spending, Elections |
| Date: | 2022–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03619549&r=pol |
| By: | Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Caroline Le Pennec (HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal); Elisa Mougin (Sciences Po - Sciences Po, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | Do campaign finance regulations influence politicians? We study the effects of a French ban on corporate donations passed in 1995. We use a difference-indifferences approach and a novel dataset combining the campaign manifestos issued by every candidate running for a seat in the French parliament with detailed data on their campaign contributions. We show that banning corporate donations discourages candidates from advertising their local presence during the campaign, as well as economic issues. The ban also leads candidates from non-mainstream parties to use more polarized language. These findings suggest that private donors shape politicians' topics of interest, and that campaign finance reforms may affect the information made available to voters through their impact on candidates' rhetoric. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Campaign finance, Corporate donations, Campaign manifestos, Political rhetoric, Text analysis |
| Date: | 2021–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03877943&r=pol |
| By: | Yasmine Bekkouche (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - 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, ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles); Julia Cage (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Edgard Dewitte (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | What is the impact of campaign spending on votes? Does it vary across election types, political parties or electoral settings? Estimating these effects requires comprehensive data on spending across candidates, parties and elections, as well as identification strategies that handle the endogenous and strategic nature of campaign spending in multiparty systems. This paper provides novel contributions in both of these areas. We build a new comprehensive dataset of all French legislative and UK general elections over the 1993–2017 period. We propose new empirical specifications, including a new instrument that relies on the fact that candidates are differentially affected by regulation on the source of funding on which they depend the most. We find that an increase in spending per voter consistently improves candidates' vote share, both at British and French elections, and that the effect is heterogeneous depending on candidates' party. In particular, we show that spending by radical and extreme parties has much lower returns than spending by mainstream parties, and that this can be partly explained by the social stigma attached to extreme voting. Our findings help reconcile the conflicting results of the existing literature, and improve our understanding of why campaigns matter. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Campaign financing, Campaign expenditures, Campaign finance reform, Multiparty electoral data, Heterogeneous effects of campaign spending |
| Date: | 2022–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03389172&r=pol |
| By: | Elisa Mougin (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The aim of the thesis is to delve into some of the determinants of the supply side of the information market, and consider the possible implications that those determinants can have on societies and political systems. The three chapters are independent from each other and can be read separately. They are three studies on three questions in media economics and aim at contributing to the debate on how information is produced and with with consequences.As the main methodology, I use tools from applied microeconomics to quantitatively isolate relationships between one determinant of the production function of information and discourse, or content, as my outcome of interest. I also borrow to the political science literature and studies in communication to better discuss the pattern emphasized through data analysis.In the first chapter, I consider parameters that affect media capture, and how the perceptions of the likelihood to find a story to disclose and the characteristics of the market influence the different forms of pressures over media outlets over the world. In the second chapter, I look into the influence of money on political discourse and investigates how receiving donations from firms can affect candidates discourse, in an analysis of political manifestos issued by candidates to the French legislative election. In the third chapter, I study the impact of technological change on media content and political behavior. More precisely, I look at the effect of the introduction of digital TV in Kenya on news content and on political preferences during the presidential election of 2017. Hence, the three chapters of this dissertation illustrate the complexity of the media landscape and of the determinants of the political discourse. Building on the existing results from the literature and using a large range of methods, I try to contribute to the general debate on the challenges pertaining to today's world of information and entertainment, in its multifaceted aspects. |
| Abstract: | Cette thèse porte principalement sur l'étude des déterminants de l'offre du marché de l'information, et cherche à examiner comment ces multiples facteurs peuvent influencer nos sociétés ou systèmes politiques. Les trois chapitres sont indépendants les uns des autres et peuvent être lus séparément. Ils constituent trois études dans le champ de l'économie des médias et visent à contribuer au débat sur les modes de production de l'information et leurs possibles effets.Pour mettre en évidence les relations entre un déterminant donné de la fonction de production de l'information, et discours le contenu produit, j'utilise une variété de méthodes, tenant principalement de la microéconomie appliquée. J'emprunte également aux méthodes utilisées en science politique et en sciences de la communication, afin de mieux mettre en perspective et interpréter les résultats tirés de l'analyse quantitative des données. Dans le premier chapitre, nous analysons les paramètres qui affectent la capture de médias, et comment les perceptions de la probabilité qu'une enquête journalistique aboutisse à la publication d'une information inédite, et les caractéristiques du marché influencent les différentes formes de pression exercées sur les médias dans le monde. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous étudions l'influence de l'argent sur le discours des hommes et femmes politiques : il est question de comprendre comment le fait de recevoir des dons de la part d'entreprises privées peut affecter le discours des candidats. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les professions de foi publiées par les candidats aux élections législatives françaises dans les années 1990. Dans le troisième chapitre, je m'intéresse aux possibles impacts du changement technologique sur la production des contenus et le comportement politique des citoyens. Plus précisément, j'étudie l'effet de l'introduction de la télévision numérique au Kenya sur l'information télévisuelle et comment les programmes ont affecté les préférences politiques lors de l'élection présidentielle de 2017. |
| Keywords: | Media, Political economy, Information, Elections, Médias, Economie politique |
| Date: | 2021–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:tel-03537938&r=pol |
| By: | Hanming Fang; Ming Li; Zenan Wu |
| Abstract: | We argue that inter-jurisdictional competition in a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime distorts local politicians’ incentives in resource allocation among firms from their own city and a competing city. We develop a tournament model of project selection that captures the driving forces of local protectionism. The model robustly predicts that the joint presence of regional spillover and the incentive for political competition leads to biased resource allocations against the competing regions. Combining several unique data sets, we test our model predictions in the context of government procurement allocation and firms' equity investment across Chinese cities. We find that, first, when local politicians are in more intensive political competition, they allocate less government procurement contracts to firms in the competing city; second, local firms, especially local SOEs, internalize the local politicians’ career concerns and invest less in the competing cities. Our paper provides a political economy explanation for inefficient local protectionism in an autocracy incentivized by tournament-style political competition. |
| JEL: | H11 H70 P30 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30780&r=pol |
| By: | Charles Angelucci (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Michael Sinkinson (Yale University [New Haven], NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Technological innovations in content delivery, such as the advent of broadcast television or of the Internet, threaten local newspapers' ability to bundle their original local content with third-party content such as wire national news. We examine how the entry of television-with its initial focus on national news-affected local newspapers as well as consumer news diets in the United States. We construct a novel dataset of U.S. newspapers' economic performance and content choices from 1944 to 1964 and exploit quasi-random variation in the rollout of television to show that this new technology was a negative shock in both the readership and advertising markets for newspapers. Newspapers responded by providing less content, particularly local news. We tie this change towards increasingly nationalized news diets to an increase in party vote share congruence between Congressional and Presidential elections. |
| Keywords: | Media, Local News, Television, Newspapers, Advertising, Bundling, Split-Ticket Voting |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03880088&r=pol |
| By: | Laurent Bouton (GU - Georgetown University [Washington], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research); Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Edgard Dewitte (Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Vincent Pons (Harvard Business School - Harvard University [Cambridge], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We study the characteristics and behavior of small campaign donors and compare them to large donors by building a dataset including all the 340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Thanks to the reporting requirements of online fundraising platforms first used by Democrats (ActBlue) and now Republicans (WinRed), we observe contribution-level information on the vast majority of small donations. We first show that the number of small donors (donors who do not give more than $200 to any committee during a two-year electoral cycle) and their total contributions have been growing rapidly. Second, small donors include more women and more ethnic minorities than large donors, but their geographical distribution does not differ much. Third, using a saturated fixed effects model, we find that race closeness, candidate ideological extremeness, whether candidates and donors live in the same district or state, and whether they have the same ethnicity increase contributions, with lower effects for small donors. Finally, we show that campaign TV ads affect the number and size of contributions to congressional candidates, particularly for small donors, indicating that pull factors are relevant to explain their behavior. |
| Keywords: | Campaign finance, Campaign contributions, Small donations, ActBlue, WinRed, TV advertising |
| Date: | 2021–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03878175&r=pol |
| By: | Sergei Guriev (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Elias Papaioannou (London Business School) |
| Abstract: | We synthesize the literature on the recent rise of populism. First, we discuss definitions and present descriptive evidence on the recent increase in support for populists. Second, we cover the historical evolution of populist regimes since the late nineteenth century. Third, we discuss the role of secular economic factors related to cross-border trade and automation. Fourth, we review studies on the role of the 2008–09 global financial crisis and subsequent austerity, connect them to historical work covering the Great Depression, and discuss likely mechanisms. Fifth, we discuss studies on identity politics, trust, and cultural backlash. Sixth, we discuss economic and cultural consequences of growth in immigration and the recent refugee crisis. We also discuss the gap between perceptions and reality regarding immigration. Seventh, we review studies on the impact of the internet and social media. Eighth, we discuss the literature on the implications of populism's recent rise. We conclude outlining avenues for further research. |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03874305&r=pol |
| By: | Haselmann, Rainer; Sarkar, Arkodipta; Singla, Shikhar; Vig, Vikrant |
| Abstract: | Increased interdependencies across countries have led to calls for greater harmonization of regulations to prevent local shock from spilling over to other countries. Using the rulemaking process of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), this paper studies the process through which harmonization is achieved. Through leaked voting records, we document that the probability of a regulator opposing an initiative increases if their domestic national champion (NC) opposes the new rule, particularly when the proposed rule disproportionately affects them. Next, we show that smaller banks, even when they collectively have a higher share in the domestic market, do not have any impact on regulators' stand - suggesting that regulators' support for NCs is not guided by their national interest. Further, we find the effect is driven by regulators who had prior experience working in large banks. Finally, we show this unanimous decision-making process results in significant watering down of proposed rules. Overall, the results highlight the limits of harmonization of international financial regulation. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, Financial Regulation, Textual Analysis |
| JEL: | P43 G28 G21 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:lawfin:45&r=pol |
| By: | Maciej Wysocki; Cezary Wójcik; Andreas Freytag |
| Abstract: | The past decade has witnessed an increase in populist movements across the world. Some of those movements have gained strong political support and formed populist governments promising new sets of economic and fiscal policies. This raises the pertinent policy question: how do such populist governments influence fiscal policy outcomes? We approach this question by looking at the case of Poland which according to several recent studies has experienced the highest level of populist rhetorics in recent years. Indeed, when the new populist government took power, between 2015-2019, Poland experienced a major social and fiscal policy shifts: the new government decreased the statutory retirement age despite sever aging problem and launched one of the biggest social programs in Europe which resulted in sharp increase in political support for the government. In the paper we provide some first evidence of the impact of such policies on fiscal outcomes. Our analysis reveals that fiscal sustainability parameters have significantly deteriorated sharply after 2015 when the new government undertook populist policies, despite the fact that current (observable) deficit and debt levels remained stable. Specifically, our estimates suggest that just after a year since the introduction of the new fiscal program, the strength of reaction of the primary balance to a change of the public debt decreased by nearly 50% in 2017 and the parameter turned negative and statistically insignificant thereafter which means that from 2018 fiscal policy lacked long term sustainability. Overall, our estimations show that in the period of 2016-2019 fiscal sustainability parameters were the lowest since Poland joined the EU in 2004. While our analysis has several limitations, the case of the populist government in Poland provides some early evidence that populists do have negative impact on long term fiscal sustainability. |
| Keywords: | fiscal sustainability, fiscal and social policy, populism |
| JEL: | C22 E60 H63 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10146&r=pol |
| By: | Golin, M.; Rauh, C. |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we establish a causal effect of workers’ perceived probability of losing one’s job due to automation on preferences for redistribution and intentions to join a union. In a representative sample of the US workforce, we elicit the perceived fear of losing one’s job to robots or artificial intelligence. We document a strong relationship between fear of automation and intentions to join a union, retrain and switch occupations, preferences for higher taxation, higher government handouts, populist attitudes, and voting intentions. We then show a causal effect of providing information about job loss probabilities on preferred levels of taxation and handouts. In contrast, our information treatment does not affect workers’ intentions to self-insure by retraining or switching occupations, but it increases workers’ self-reported likelihood of joining a union to seek more job protection. The treatment effects are mostly driven by workers who are informed about larger job loss probabilities than they perceived. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Inequality, information treatment, Political attitudes, Political preferences, Populism, Redistribution |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camjip:2229&r=pol |
| By: | Jeremy Bowles (Stanford University); Benjamin Marx (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Legislators in developing democracies turn over at very high rates: across recent parliamentary elections in 12 African countries, only a third of incumbents are reelected on average. We show that this high turnover is consistent with an electoral equilibrium wherein voters' self-fulfilling beliefs limit accountability. First, we establish that voters' pessimistic beliefs, grounded in their inability to link distributive benefits to their representatives, induce the sanctioning of incumbents and reduce incentives to seek reelection. Second, we explore the role of attribution challenges in causing this equilibrium. Leveraging new data and plausibly exogenous variation in the allocation of constituency development funds (CDFs), over which legislators hold significant discretion, we find that CDFs (1) increase the rate at which incumbents are reelected; (2) decrease voters' perceptions of parliamentary corruption. These results shed new light on how attributable policy instruments, by shifting voters' beliefs about parliamentary efficacy, can contribute to enhancing democratic accountability. |
| Date: | 2022–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03873800&r=pol |
| By: | Enrico Spolaore |
| Abstract: | This paper overviews theoretical and empirical studies of political borders from an economic perspective. It reviews theories of the number and size of nations focused on the trade-off between economies of scale in public-good provision and heterogeneity of preferences over public policies as well as on the factors affecting this trade-off, such as democratization, international openness, and conflict. It also reviews theories of political integration and disintegration focused on economic inequality, redistribution policies, and the geographical distribution of resources. Finally, the paper discusses recent empirical studies that shed light on the relations among heterogeneity, conflict, and borders. This line of research is part of a growing literature on the interplay between cultural variables and economic and political outcomes. |
| JEL: | D7 F5 F55 H10 H40 H77 P0 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30800&r=pol |
| By: | André de Palma; Gordon M. Myers; Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou (Université de Cergy-Pontoise, THEMA) |
| Abstract: | We model imperfect governments with public choices which are sequential, myopic, and not free of error. We first use this framework to explore governmental incremental budgeting. We argue that a model of bounded rationality is required to capture the empirical reality of incremental budgeting. We then provide a model which integrates bounds errors and systematic errors. We argue that the empirical evidence is that bounds errors and systematic errors are inextricably intertwined–some level of bounded rationality is required for systematic errors to emerge. We use this to explore political information lobbying. A testable hypothesis is that lobbyists will focus efforts on policy makers of low ability. We show that choosing leaders with high ability, that is Madison’s wisdom to discern, is important, especially when policy decisions concern dangerous products (rifles) or dangerous environments (pandemics). |
| Keywords: | Behavioural Economics, Public Choice. |
| JEL: | D90 H11 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2022-25&r=pol |
| By: | Uchida, Yuki; Ono, Tetsuo |
| Abstract: | This study focuses on the golden rule of public finance, which distinguishes public investment from consumption spending when borrowing and permits only debt-financed public investment, in an overlapping-generations model with physical and human capital accumulation. In this model, the rule and the associated fiscal policy are endogenous, chosen in each period by a short-lived government representing existing generations. We calibrate the model to Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, where the rule has been in place, and show that Germany follows the rule while Japan and the United Kingdom break it, which is consistent with current literature. Subsequently, we evaluate the government’s choice and the resulting political distortions of physical and human capital accumulation from the perspective of future generations. We compute the optimal proportion of debt-financed public investment in terms of minimizing the political distortions and find that in each country, the optimal proportion is lower than the one determined by the short-lived government. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Rule; Golden Rule of Public Finance; Probabilistic Voting; Overlapping Generations; Political Distortions |
| JEL: | D70 E62 H63 |
| Date: | 2021–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115844&r=pol |