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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Federle, Jonathan-Julian; Mohr, Cathrin; Schularick, Moritz |
| Abstract: | We study the political consequences of inflation surprises, focusing on votes for extremist and populist parties in 365 elections in 18 advanced economies since 1948. Inflation surprises are regularly followed by a substantial increase in vote shares of extremist, anti-system, and populist parties. An inflation surprise of 10 percentage points leads to a 15% increase in their vote share, comparable to the increase typically seen after financial crises. We show that the change in voting behavior is particularly pronounced when real wages decline, and less evident when real wages are not affected. Our paper points to considerable political after-effects of unexpected inflation. |
| Keywords: | Inflation, Economic Voting, Extremism, Populism, Radicalization |
| JEL: | D72 E31 N40 N10 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:308099 |
| By: | Leonie Geyer (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany); Patrick Mellacher (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | We study strategic party interaction in a spatial voting model where voters' ideological positions may change. Building on a rich empirical and theoretical literature, we assume that voters align their ideology with others who are sufficiently close to them (social influence with bounded confidence) as well as with the party that they support (party attraction). We show that these changes have strong implications on the results of the party competition model by Laver (2005). Two strategies stand out in our simulations: Aggregators, who always follow the mean policy of their supporters, and predators, who always chase the strongest party. Aggregators are most likely to win in a large corridor of the parameter space. However, predators can outperform them if party attraction is strong. This is interesting because predators are on average the worst-performing parties in the static voter distribution benchmark. We argue that these results are connected to real-world debates about how mainstream parties should react to the rise of extremist parties, as the two strategies epitomize debates about focusing on own strengths and supporters (aggregators) vs. adapting towards successful extremists (predators). We also demonstrate that the level of polarization and fragmentation of parties and voters is strongly affected by social influence and party attraction. While medium-sized confidence bounds and party attraction increase the polarization of voters and parties, unconstrained social influence decreases it. |
| Keywords: | Spatial voting model, opinion dynamics, agent-based model. |
| JEL: | C63 D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2024-19 |
| By: | Aksoy, Cevat Giray (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development); Eichengreen, Barry (University of California, Berkeley); Litina, Anastasia (University of Macedonia); Özgüzel, Cem (Paris School of Economics); Yu, Chan (University of International Business and Economics Beijing) |
| Abstract: | Scholars and politicians have expressed concern that immigrants from countries with low levels of political trust transfer those attitudes to their destination countries. Using large-scale survey data covering 38 countries and exploiting origin-country variation across different cohorts and survey rounds, we show that, to the contrary, immigrants more exposed to institutional corruption before migrating exhibit higher levels of political trust in their new country. Higher trust is observed for national political institutions only and does not carry over to other supra-national institutions and individuals. We report evidence that higher levels of political trust among immigrants persist, leading to greater electoral participation and political engagement in the long run. The impact of home-country corruption on political trust in the destination country is further amplified by large differences in levels of income and democracy between home and host countries, which serve to highlight the contrast in the two settings. It is lessened by exposure to media, a source of information about institutional quality. Finally, our extensive analyses indicate that self-selection into host countries based on trust is highly unlikely and the results hold even when focusing only on forced migrants who were unlikely to have been subject to selection. |
| Keywords: | corruption, institutions, immigrants, political trust |
| JEL: | Z1 D73 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17553 |
| By: | Otrachshenko, Vladimir; Popova, Olga |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to a better understanding of the drivers of electoral support for Green parties and the environmental actions they promote, which is key to ensuring the long-term feasibility of environmental policies. We examine whether individual environmental preferences translate into voting for Green parties and analyze the mechanisms behind this effect. Employing an individual-level survey from developed and developing economies matched with the political parties' programs globally, we find that individuals who prefer environmental protection over economic growth are likely to translate their preferences into voting and supporting Green parties. These findings are robust to alternative definitions of Green parties and environmental preferences and to potential endogeneity concerns. The key mechanisms behind this relationship are changes in the stringency of environmental regulations, individual economic and social insecurity, and individual- and country-level exposure to environmental changes. The effect of environmental preferences on Green party voting is less pronounced among individuals living in rural areas and economically disadvantaged individuals, including those with lower education and income. These results suggest that support for Green parties and environmental policies is contingent on voters' economic security even when environmental preferences are strong, emphasizing the need for Green parties to address voters' economic concerns. |
| Keywords: | environmental preferences, Green parties, sustainable development, voting |
| JEL: | D72 H11 Q56 Q58 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1525 |
| By: | Heeb, Florian; Kölbel, Julian; Ramelli, Stefano; Vasileva, Anna |
| Abstract: | A fundamental concern about green investing is that it may crowd out political support for public policy addressing negative externalities. We examine this concern in a preregistered experiment shortly before a real referendum on a climate law with a representative sample of the Swiss population (N = 2, 051). We find that the opportunity to invest in a climate-friendly fund does not reduce individuals' support for climate regulation, measured as political donations and voting intentions. The results hold for participants who actively choose green investing. We conclude that the effect of green investing on political behavior is limited. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral Finance, Climate Change, ESG, Externalities, Sustainable Finance, Political Economy, Voting Behavior |
| JEL: | D14 H42 G18 P16 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:308044 |
| By: | Michelitch, Kristin; Horowitz, Jeremy; Lemoli, Giacomo |
| Abstract: | Where political parties form around coalitions of ethnic groups, as in many sub-Saharan African democracies, political actors’ favoritism toward their own supporters plays a prominent and normatively fraught role in electoral competition and public service delivery. However, little is known about how citizens normatively evaluate whether such “clientelistic behaviors” should be considered illegal and punishable. This study hypothesizes that citizens will desire greater punishment for clientelistic actions when (a) the behavior is more distortionary (e.g., targeting coethnics vs. copartisans vs. general people), and (b) the citizen holds opposing ethnopartisanship to the ac-tor. We also posit a positive interaction between the two. Using a survey experiment conducted in Kenya (n=1, 946) with Kikuyu and Luo respondents ahead of the 2017 national elections, we ask participants to assign punishment for various clientelistic be-haviors. The results show that citizens systematically award more punishment when actors target their supporters rather than general people, with little difference between coethnic versus copartisan targeting. Citizens also punish actors more from the oppos-ing ethnopartisanship, but there is no systematic interaction effect between the level of distortion and (un)shared ethnopartisanship. |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:130034 |
| By: | Haotian Chen; Jack Kappelman |
| Abstract: | The United States leads the world in the number of violent mass shootings that occur each year, and policy making on firearms remains polarized along party lines. Are legislators responsive to mass shootings? We estimate the latent positions of nearly 2, 000 state legislators on gun policy from their roll-call voting records on firearm-related bills from 2011 to 2022. Employing a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that mass shootings within or near a state legislator's district do not alter their voting behavior on firearm policy, on average, for members of both parties. Our estimated effects of mass shootings on treated legislators' support for restrictive gun policies (on a -1 to 1 scale) range from a 4.8% reduction among California Democrats and a 0.9% increase among California Republicans to, across six total states, a 5% (among Democrats) and 7.1% (among Republicans) increase, with 95% confidence intervals spanning opposite directions. We conclude that, on average, mass shootings fail to produce changes in a legislator's support (opposition) for restrictive (permissive) firearms bills. Our findings suggest that even the most heinous acts of mass violence -- that are squarely in the domain of events that state legislators might respond to -- fail to produce any measurable effects on legislators' positions on firearm-related policy. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2501.01084 |
| By: | Alabrese, Eleonora (University of Bath, CAGE and SAFE); Capozza, Francesco (WZB Berlin, BSoE, and CESifo); Garg, Prashant (Imperial College London) |
| Abstract: | As social media is increasingly popular, we examine the reputational costs of its increased centrality among academics. Analyzing posts of 98, 000 scientists on Twitter (2016-2022) reveals substantial and varied political discourse. We assess the impact of such online political expression with online experiments on a representative sample of 3, 700 U.S. respondents and 135 journalists who rate vignettes of synthetic academic profiles with varied political affiliations. Politically neutral scientists are viewed as the most credible. Strikingly, on both the 'left' and 'right' sides of politically neutral, there is a monotonic penalty for scientists displaying political affiliations: the stronger their posts, the less credible their profile and research are perceived, and the lower the public's willingness to read their content, especially among oppositely aligned respondents. A survey of 128 scientists shows awareness of this penalty and a consensus on avoiding political expression outside their expertise. |
| Keywords: | Social Media, Scientists’ Credibility, Polarization, Online Experiment JEL Classification: A11, C93, D72, D83, D91, I23, Z10, Z13 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:735 |
| By: | Filippo Cicoli (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino Carlo Bo) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of political polarization and populism on climate change discourse. Political polarization, driven by ideological and affective divides, hampers effective climate communication and policy-making. Populist rhetoric, characterized by anti-elite sentiments and simplistic narratives, further exacerbates these divides. Social media platforms amplify these polarizing messages, creating echo chambers and reinforcing extreme views. Addressing this polarization requires nuanced communication strategies that bridge ideological gaps and promote fact-based, inclusive discourse, fostering better policy outcomes and collaborative solutions. |
| Keywords: | Polarization; Climate Change; Misinformation; Populism |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:24_03 |
| By: | N. Bradley Fox; Benjamin Bruyns |
| Abstract: | The standard voting methods in the United States, plurality and ranked choice (or instant runoff) voting, are susceptible to significant voting failures. These flaws include Condorcet and majority failures as well as monotonicity and no-show paradoxes. We investigate alternative ranked choice voting systems using variations of the points-based Borda count which avoid monotonicity paradoxes. These variations are based on the way partial ballots are counted and on extending the values of the points assigned to each rank in the ballot. In particular, we demonstrate which voting failures are possible for each variation and then empirically study 421 U.S. ranked choice elections conducted from 2004 to 2023 to determine the frequency of voting failures when using five Borda variations. Our analysis demonstrates that the primary vulnerability of majority failures is rare or nonexistent depending on the variation. Other voting failures such as truncation or compromise failures occur more frequently compared to instant runoff voting as a trade-off for avoiding monotonicity paradoxes. |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2501.00618 |
| By: | Charles F. Manski |
| Abstract: | The relationship of policy choice by majority voting and by maximization of utilitarian welfare has long been discussed. I consider choice between a status quo and a proposed policy when persons have interpersonally comparable cardinal utilities taking values in a bounded interval, voting is compulsory, and each person votes for a policy that maximizes utility. I show that knowledge of the attained status quo welfare and the voting outcome yields an informative bound on welfare with the proposed policy. The bound contains the value of status quo welfare, so the better utilitarian policy is not known. The minimax-regret decision and certain Bayes decisions choose the proposed policy if its vote share exceeds the known value of status quo welfare. This procedure differs from majority rule, which chooses the proposed policy if its vote share exceeds 1/2. |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2412.18714 |
| By: | Berlemann, Michael; Eckmann, Timur; Eurich, Marina |
| Abstract: | For governments, the occurrence of natural disasters creates the opportunity to demonstrate their willingness and competence in providing prompt and efficient disaster aid. A number of studies has investigated the political consequences of providing disaster aid by analyzing the effects of such aid on subsequent election results. However, the findings of these studies have not yielded a coherent picture. This paper makes a contribution to the existing literature by employing high-frequency survey data on presidential approval. The combination of this data with wildfire data and information on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) aid approvals and denials reveals that Barack Obama gained in support among (potential) voters for whom FEMA aid was approved by the president, while he was not punished for denials of FEMA assistance. We show that this effect is exclusively driven by voters without party affiliation and the that the effect is temporary. |
| Abstract: | Für die Regierungen bietet das Auftreten von Naturkatastrophen die Möglichkeit, ihre Bereitschaft und Kompetenz zur schnellen und effizienten Katastrophenhilfe unter Beweis zu stellen. In einer Reihe von Studien wurden die politischen Folgen der Katastrophenhilfe untersucht, indem die Auswirkungen dieser Hilfe auf die nachfolgenden Wahlergebnisse analysiert wurden. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studien führten jedoch zu keinem einheitlichen Ergebnis. Die vorliegende Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zur bestehenden Literatur, indem sie hochfrequente Umfragedaten zur Zustimmung des Präsidenten verwendet. Die Kombination dieser Daten mit Daten über Waldbrände und Informationen über bewilligte und verweigerte Hilfen bereitgestellt von der Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) zeigt, dass Barack Obama bei (potenziellen) Wählern, denen der Präsident FEMA-Hilfen bewilligte, an Unterstützung gewann, während er bei Verweigerung von FEMA-Hilfen nicht abgestraft wurde. Wir zeigen, dass dieser Effekt ausschließlich von Wählern ohne Parteizugehörigkeit getrieben wird und dass der Effekt vorübergehend ist. |
| Keywords: | Presidential approval, natural disasters, wildfires, disaster aid, disaster declarations, FEMA |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hwwiwp:308095 |
| By: | Kuhn, Annegret; Merk, Christine; Wunsch, Andrea |
| Abstract: | We compare public perceptions of restoring different ecosystems to increase CO 2 uptake in Germany, through focus groups and a general population survey. Among focus group participants forests were highly popular, peatlands evoked negative associations, and seagrass was largely unknown. Nevertheless, the restoration of all ecosystems was viewed positively. We contrast these reactions to those of survey respondents who had not received additional information on restoration. They voiced narrower, less diverse opinions centering around afforestation. Further, focus group participants preferred expert-led restoration decisions, citing low trust in politicians’ technical competence. Contrary to common policy recommendations, also beyond the German context, participants did not emphasize the need of citizen participation and were not strongly concerned about land use conflicts or compensation of affected user groups. The results imply that the public underestimates the political complexity of negotiation processes in ecosystem governance, which are becoming increasingly relevant in the international policy landscape. |
| Keywords: | Climate change mitigation, CO2 removal, Ecosystem restoration, Political trus, Political participation, Public perception |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:306554 |
| By: | Pradeep Dubey; Siddhartha Sahi |
| Abstract: | In a country with multiple elections it may be expedient to hold some or all of these on a common polling date. Our main result, Theorem C, is that under certain assumptions, an increase in the simultaneity of polling increases the likelihood that one party wins all the elections. We deduce this from an inequality, Theorem D, which generalizes the Harris correlation inequality from statistical mechanics. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nys:sunysb:25-01 |