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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Luis Guirola (Banco de España); Gonzalo Rivero (Independent researcher) |
| Abstract: | Increasing political polarization implies that each election expands the gap between the supporters of the losing side and the winning party. This asymmetry in how citizen’s feel about the outcome of elections could propagate to the institutions under partisan control but also to those designed to be isolated from electoral pressures – such as courts or central banks. Leveraging three decades of surveys covering European 27 countries, we exploit 138 cabinet shifts between 1991 and 2019 to estimate the effect of a growing divide between winners and losers on attitudes towards both types of institutions. We find that trust in either type institutions drops around elections but that the magnitude of the drop varies substantially across contexts. The polarization of parties explains most of this variance, suggesting that, in a polarized environment, partisan hostility can contaminate attitudes towards the political system as a whole creating the conditions for democratic backsliding. |
| Keywords: | institutions, trust, polarization |
| JEL: | D72 D73 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:2237&r=pol |
| By: | Christian Pfeifer (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre) |
| Abstract: | Many citizens are relatively dissatisfied with the democratic regimes they live in, which can be a threat to political stability. This paper reports empirical evidence that workers in firms with works councils are on average significantly more satisfied with the democracy as it exists in Germany than workers in firms without such a participatory workplace institution. This result holds in regressions for subsamples, in panel regressions accounting for unobserved individual heterogeneity, and in endogenous treatment regressions. It gives support to the “spillover thesis” that participatory workplace characteristics have a broader effect on society. Consequently, strengthening worker codetermination might help to increase the overall satisfaction with the democratic regime and foster political stability. |
| Keywords: | democracy; codetermination; satisfaction; “spillover thesis”; works councils |
| JEL: | D02 D72 J58 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lue:wpaper:420&r=pol |
| By: | Abeer Ibtisam Aziz (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | In 2016, the US elections and Brexit changed the perception and understanding of how social media platforms could influence political outcomes. This has been complemented by the advancement in automation and data processing. This paper studies the influence of bots on online information diffusion and political discourse around the 2021 German Federal Elections. It examines the behavior of social bots in online political communication, in particular, whether the presence of bots leads to an amplification of the Tweet volume of humans. Using Twitter data pertaining to the German political sphere over 6 weeks till election day, I find 6% of the tweets originated from bot accounts. The impact of the bots is investigated through time series analysis. The key findings are that the bots’ tweet volume significantly impacts the human tweet volume, especially when the tweets hold the same inclination towards a political party. The influence is not always observed for across-inclination tweet volumes of bots on humans. Furthermore, employing impulse response functions, the impact is observed to be positive, indicating an amplification effect of bots’ tweeting activity. |
| Keywords: | Political communication, social bots, Germany, Twitter |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D84 C32 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202309&r=pol |
| By: | Anton Kolotilin; Alexander Wolitzky |
| Abstract: | We study the problem of a partisan gerrymanderer who assigns voters to equipopulous districts so as to maximize his party's expected seat share. The designer faces both aggregate uncertainty (how many votes his party will receive) and idiosyncratic, voter-level uncertainty (which voters will vote for his party). We argue that pack-and-pair districting, where weaker districts are ``packed'' with a single type of voter, while stronger districts contain two voter types, is typically optimal for the gerrymanderer. The optimal form of pack-and-pair districting depends on the relative amounts of aggregate and idiosyncratic uncertainty. When idiosyncratic uncertainty dominates, it is optimal to pack opposing voters and pair more favorable voters; this plan resembles traditional ``packing-and-cracking.'' When aggregate uncertainty dominates, it is optimal to pack moderate voters and pair extreme voters; this ``matching slices'' plan has received some attention in the literature. Estimating the model using precinct-level returns from recent US House elections indicates that, in practice, idiosyncratic uncertainty dominates and packing opponents is optimal; moreover, traditional pack-and-crack districting is approximately optimal. We discuss implications for redistricting reform and political polarization. Methodologically, we exploit a formal connection between gerrymandering -- partitioning voters into districts -- and information design -- partitioning states of the world into signals. |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2304.09381&r=pol |
| By: | Dorje C. Brody; Tomooki Yuasa |
| Abstract: | The probability of a given candidate winning a future election is worked out in closed form as a function of (i) the current support rates for each candidate, (ii) the relative positioning of the candidates within the political spectrum, (iii) the time left to the election, and (iv) the rate at which noisy information is revealed to the electorate from now to the election day, when there are three or more candidates. It is shown, in particular, that the optimal strategy for controlling information can be intricate and nontrivial, in contrast to a two-candidate race. A surprising finding is that for a candidate taking the centre ground in an electoral competition among a polarised electorate, certain strategies are fatal in that the resulting winning probability for that candidate vanishes identically. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2305.00693&r=pol |
| By: | Philémon Poux (CRED - Centre de Recherche en Economie et Droit - Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, CERSA - Centre d'Études et de Recherches de Sciences Administratives et Politiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Institut Cujas - Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech) |
| Abstract: | Following an increasingly large corpus of literature championing blockchain-based voting systems and, in particular, Liquid Democracy, this paper proposes a theoretical analysis based on public economics on the issue completing the current literature which focuses more on technical issues. Differentiating between Liquid Democracy as a voting tool and as a new form of democracy, I argue that the former offers the opportunity to vote for more inclusive decisions and to better reflect voters's intensity of preferences delegation and logrolling. However, the latter does not benefit from these positive outcomes as it faces major limitations at large scales because it fails to provide a framework for bundling and for legislative work. In this paper, I conclude that reaches the conclusion that, for now, Liquid Democracy is more suited to local democracy or small-scale homogeneous groups than to larger-scale systems (such as national constitutions). Along the paper, I discuss blockchain-based examples of Liquid Democracy to illustrate the analysis and link it with recent literature. |
| Date: | 2023–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04066595&r=pol |
| By: | Angelo Leogrande (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro); Alberto Costantiello (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we estimate the value of Government Expenditure on Education-GEE in the context of Environmental, Social and Governance-ESG dataset of the World Bank. We use data from 193 countries in the period 2011-2020. We use Panel Data with Fixed Effects, Panel Data with Random Effects, Pooled Ordinary Least Squares-OLS, and Weighted Least Squares-WLS. Our results show that the value of GEE is positively associated among others to "Case of Death, by communicable disease and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions", and "Unemployment", and negatively associated among others to "Hospital Beds" and "Government Effectiveness". Furthermore, we apply the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Elbow Method and we find the presence of four clusters. Finally, we confront eight machine learning algorithms for the prediction of the future value of GEE. We found that the Polynomial Regression is the best predictive algorithm. The Polynomial Regression predicts an increase in GEE of 7.09% on average for the analysed countries. |
| Keywords: | General, Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour, Bureaucracy, Administrative Processes in Public Organizations, Corruption, Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation, Implementation JEL Classification: D7, D70, D72, D73, D78, Analysis of Collective Decision-Making General Political Processes: Rent-Seeking Lobbying Elections Legislatures and Voting Behaviour Bureaucracy Administrative Processes in Public Organizations Corruption Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation Implementation JEL Classification: D7 D70 D72 D73 D78, Analysis of Collective Decision-Making |
| Date: | 2023–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04088789&r=pol |
| By: | Robert Dur (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Arjan Non (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Paul Prottung; Benedetta Ricci |
| Abstract: | In many public policy areas, randomized policy experiments can greatly contribute to our knowledge of the effects of policies and can thus help to improve public policy. However, policy experiments are not very common. This paper studies whether a lack of appreciation of policy experiments among voters may be the reason for this. Using unique survey data representative of the Dutch electorate, we find clear evidence contradicting this view. Voters strongly support policy experimentation and, in line with theory, particularly so when they do not hold a strong opinion about the policy. In a subsequent survey experiment among Dutch politicians, we find that politicians conform their expressed opinion about policy experiments to what we tell them the actual opinion of voters is. We conclude that voters are not afraid of policy experiments and neither are politicians when we tell them that voters are not. |
| Keywords: | policy experiments, randomized controlled trials, voters, politicians, public policy, survey experiment, conformism. |
| JEL: | C93 D72 D78 |
| Date: | 2023–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20230027&r=pol |
| By: | Alberto Costantiello (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro); Angelo Leogrande (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the value of Research and Development Expenditures as a percentage of GDP-RDE in the context of Environmental, Social and Governance-ESG model. We use the ESG World Bank database. We analyze data from193 countries in the period 2011-2020. We apply a set of econometric techniques i.e. Pooled Ordinary Least Squares-OLS, Panel Data with Random Effects, Panel Data with Fixed Effects, Weighted Least Squares-WLS. We found that the level of RDE is positively associated, among others, to "Nitrous Oxide Emissions" and "Scientific and Technical Journal Articles", and negatively associated, among others to "Heat Index 35", "Maximum 5-day Rainfall". Furthermore, we perform a cluster analysis with the application of the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Elbow Method. The results show the presence of four clusters. Finally, we confront eight different machine-learning algorithms to predict the future value of RDE. We find that Linear Regression is the best predictive algorithms. RDE is expected to growth on average of 0.07% for the analysed countries. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Collective Decision-Making General Political Processes: Rent-Seeking Lobbying Elections Legislatures and Voting Behaviour Bureaucracy Administrative Processes in Public Organizations Corruption Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation Implementation JEL Classification: D7 D70 D72 D73 D78, Analysis of Collective Decision-Making, General, Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour, Bureaucracy, Administrative Processes in Public Organizations, Corruption, Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation, Implementation JEL Classification: D7, D70, D72, D73, D78 |
| Date: | 2023–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04064022&r=pol |
| By: | Alberto Costantiello (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro); Angelo Leogrande (LUM University Giuseppe Degennaro) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we estimate the variable Ease of Doing Business-EDB in the context of Environmental, Social and Governance-ESG model. We use data from ESG World Bank dataset. We have used data from 193 countries in the period 2011-2020. The level of EDB is positively associated, among others, to "Individuals Using the Internet", "Government Effectiveness", "Cooling Degree Days", and negatively associated to "Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing, Value Added", "Forest Area" and "Strength of Legal Rights Index". Furthermore, we have applied a cluster analysis with the application of the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Elbow Method and we have found the presence of four clusters. Finally, we have proposed a confrontation among eight different machinelearning algorithms to predict the future value of EDB. We have found that Linear Regression is the best algorithm and that the level of EDB is expected to improve of 1.66% for the analysed countries. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Collective Decision-Making General Political Processes: Rent-Seeking Lobbying Elections Legislatures and Voting Behaviour Bureaucracy Administrative Processes in Public Organizations Corruption Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation Implementation JEL Classification: D7 D70 D72 D73 D78, Analysis of Collective Decision-Making, General, Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour, Bureaucracy, Administrative Processes in Public Organizations, Corruption, Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation, Implementation JEL Classification: D7, D70, D72, D73, D78 |
| Date: | 2023–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04071651&r=pol |
| By: | Leogrande, Angelo; Costantiello, Alberto |
| Abstract: | We analyze the question of GDP Growth-GDPG rate in the context of Environmental, Social and Governance-ESG framework. We use World Bank data for 193 countries in the period 2011-2020 using different econometric techniques i.e., Panel Data with Fixed Effects, Panel Data with Random Effects, Pooled Ordinary Least Squares-OLS. We found that GDPG rate is positively associated, among others, to “Government Effectiveness” and “Prevalence of Undernourishment” and negatively associated among others to “Unemployment” and “Research and Development Expenditure”. Furthermore, we have applied the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Elbow method and we found the presence of four clusters in the sense of GDPG rate. Finally, we confront eight machine learning algorithms to predict the value of GDPG rate and we found that the Polynomial Regression is the best predictor. The Polynomial Regression predicts an increase of GDPG rate equal to 2.88% on average for the analysed countries. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Collective Decision-Making, General, Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour, Bureaucracy, Administrative Processes in Public Organizations, Corruption, Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation, Implementation. |
| JEL: | D7 D70 D72 D73 D78 |
| Date: | 2023–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117206&r=pol |
| By: | Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Terrero-Davila, Javier; Lee, Neil |
| Abstract: | Economic change over the past twenty years has rendered many individuals and territories vulnerable, leading to greater interpersonal and interterritorial inequality. This rising inequality is seen as a root cause of populism. Yet, there is no comparative evidence as to whether this discontent is the consequence of localised interpersonal inequality or stagnant growth in ‘left-behind’ places. This paper assesses the association between levels and changes in local GDP per capita and interpersonal inequality, and the rise of far-right populism in Europe and in the US. The analysis —conducted at small region level for Europe and county level for the US— shows that there are both similarities and differences in the factors connected to populist voting on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, neither interpersonal inequality nor economic decline can explain populist support on their own. However, these factors gain significance when considered together with the racial composition of the area. Counties with a large share of white population where economic growth has been stagnant and where inequalities have increased supported Donald Trump. Meanwhile, counties with a similar economic trajectory but with a higher share of minorities shunned populism. In Europe, the most significant factor behind the rise of far-right populism is economic decline. This effect is particularly large in areas with a high share of immigration. |
| Keywords: | populism; anti-system voting; interpersonal inequality; interterritorial inequality; economic growth; Europe; US |
| JEL: | D31 D72 R11 |
| Date: | 2023–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:118537&r=pol |
| By: | Costantiello, Alberto; Leogrande, Angelo |
| Abstract: | In this article, we estimate the variable Ease of Doing Business-EDB in the context of Environmental, Social and Governance-ESG model. We use data from ESG World Bank dataset. We have used data from 193 countries in the period 2011-2020. The level of EDB is positively associated, among others, to “Individuals Using the Internet”, “Government Effectiveness”, “Cooling Degree Days”, and negatively associated to “Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing, Value Added”, “Forest Area” and “Strength of Legal Rights Index”. Furthermore, we have applied a cluster analysis with the application of the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Elbow Method and we have found the presence of four clusters. Finally, we have proposed a confrontation among eight different machine-learning algorithms to predict the future value of EDB. We have found that Linear Regression is the best algorithm and that the level of EDB is expected to improve of 1.66% for the analysed countries. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Collective Decision-Making, General, Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour, Bureaucracy, Administrative Processes in Public Organizations, Corruption, Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation, Implementation |
| JEL: | D7 D70 D72 D73 D78 |
| Date: | 2023–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:117086&r=pol |