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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Kitamura, Shuhei; Takahashi, Ryo; Yamada, Katsunori |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how voters' perceptions of other voters influence their voting behavior. We first document substantial misperceptions regarding others’ attitudes toward political malfeasance by incumbent politicians: some voters, particularly those who support the malfeasant incumbent’s party, hold more lenient views, perceiving others as more tolerant of political corruption. In contrast, voters who support opposition parties and those without strong partisan affiliations tend to hold more stringent views. Using an online survey experiment, we provide information about prevailing social norms of intolerance toward corruption. We find that the treatment increases voter turnout and the likelihood of voting for an opposition candidate, particularly among voters with stringent prior beliefs. However, we also observe a backfire effect among those with more lenient views. This study underscores the critical role of voters' perceptions of others in shaping vote decisions and offers insights into how political accountability can be promoted in a world of rising political polarization. |
| Date: | 2025–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:gajx9_v1 |
| By: | Yuta Okamoto (Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University); Yuuki Ozaki (Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a root of asymmetric party polarization, where one party becomes more ideologically extreme and the other remains relatively moderate. In a modified two-party Hotelling-Downs model with heterogeneous electorates - which differ in incentives to vote - we show that when one party experiences a disproportionate decline in public appeal, the resulting equilibrium features asymmetric polarization and higher voter turnout, in line with recent elections. |
| Keywords: | abstention, Hotelling-Downs model, party's appeal, political polarization |
| JEL: | D72 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kyo:wpaper:1116 |
| By: | Niklas Potrafke; Luisa Dörr; Klaus Gründler; Tuuli Tähtinen; Luisa Dörr |
| Abstract: | Does electing female politicians increase women’s political representation? Using a difference-in-differences design on a comprehensive cross-national dataset, we find that the first election of a female incumbent systematically increases the share of women in government. To address selection concerns, we apply the synthetic control method to a unique case of exogenous government change: the appointment of Germany’s first female state prime minister in 1993 — without a state election. Our findings provide causal evidence that her entry led to a lasting rise in women’s political representation, highlighting how even one influential woman can help others ascend to high political office. |
| Keywords: | political leaders, gender gap in politics, political participation, political representation, gender composition. |
| JEL: | J16 D72 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11851 |
| By: | Sophie Hatte (ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon, CERGIC - Center for Economic Research on Governance, Inequality and Conflict - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon); Jordan Loper (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Thomas Taylor (EUI - European University Institute - Institut Universitaire Européen) |
| Abstract: | Can social media help promote female access to political positions? Using data from 8, 814 parliamentary races across 17 sub-Saharan African countries, we explore this question in a context of significant political underrepresentation of women and rising Facebook penetration over the past decade. We leverage the staggered introduction of Facebook's Free Basics-i.e., free access to Facebook through partner mobile operators-across constituencies and time, documenting the success of this connectivity shock and its subsequent effect on female political representation. We find that the availability of Facebook's Free Basics significantly increases the election of female candidates, but only after one electoral cycle. This effect is driven by female candidates endorsed by established political parties and running for the first time. Uncovering the underlying mechanisms, we document a large, positive relationship between social media use and egalitarian gender norms, particularly regarding women in politics. Examining users' online network structures, we show that this association is driven by exposure to diverse and progressive content, and that such online connections are key to Free Basics' electoral impact. Finally, we find that Free Basics' effect is contingent on the presence of fair elections but is amplified where traditional press freedom is limited. |
| Keywords: | Social media, Mobile internet, Gender norms, Elections, Candidate selection |
| Date: | 2025–05–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-05056150 |
| By: | Quynh Do (Curtin University); Pushkar Maitra (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Activism against climate change is becoming more common globally. There is, however, little evidence on how such activism affects political outcomes. We examine the impact of the Stop-Adani convoy, a protest led by the former leader of the Greens against the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland Australia, on the electoral outcomes in the 2019 Australian federal election. We find that relative to 2016, the Liberal-National Coalition vote share in 2019 was 10 percent higher along the route of the convoy. In addition, mining engagement in the area significantly and positively affected the Coalition vote share. Surprisingly, the convoy had little positive electoral effects for the Greens. Residents of mining regions exhibited lower environmental consciousness and more socially conservative attitudes, and were more likely to vote for the more conservative Coalition. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Activism, Electoral Outcomes, Australia |
| JEL: | D72 Q50 P18 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2025-05 |
| By: | Berniell, Inés; Marchionni, Mariana; Pedrazzi, Julián; Viollaz, Mariana |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how female political leaders impact environmental outcomes and climate change policy actions using data from mixed-gender mayoral races in Brazil. We rely on a Regression Discontinuity design that compares municipalities where women narrowly won the election with those where men narrowly won. This strategy allows us to identify the causal effect of a woman winning the mayoral election. We find that, compared to male mayors, female mayors significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation in the municipalities with Amazon biome. Specifically, when a woman wins the election, annual greenhouse gas emissions decrease by 1, 510 thousand tons of CO2e per municipality in the Amazon. This effect alone represents 23% of the average annual emissions of all municipalities within the Amazon biome and 6.4% of Brazil's nationwide average. This reduction is driven by a reduction in emissions intensity (CO2e/GDP) in the Land Use sector, without changes in municipal economic activity. Part of the reduction in emissions in the Land Use sector is attributable to a decline in deforestation. Specifically, female-led municipalities in the Amazon experience a reduction in deforestation, with a 3 percentage-point decrease in the loss of forest formations relative to the baseline forest cover. This represents a 32% reduction compared to deforestation levels in the comparison municipalities. We examine potential mechanisms that could explain the positive environmental impact of narrowly electing a female mayor over a male counterpart and find that in Amazon municipalities, female elected mayors allocate more space to the environment in their government proposals and are more likely to invest in environmental initiatives. Differences in the enforcement of environmental regulations and the level of education of elected female and male mayors do not explain the results. |
| Keywords: | gender;climate change;Mayoral elections;Amazon |
| JEL: | J16 D72 Q54 Q56 Q58 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14088 |
| By: | Mostapha Diss (CRESE - Centre de REcherches sur les Stratégies Economiques (UR 3190) - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE], AIRESS - Africa Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences); Eric Kamwa (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Abdelmonaim Tlidi (UAE - Abdelmalek Essaadi University [Tétouan] = Université Abdelmalek Essaadi [Tétouan]) |
| Abstract: | The impact of election closeness on the likelihood of monotonicity paradox has recently been studied by some authors (e.g., Lepelley et al., 2018; Miller, 2017). It was shown that the frequency of such a paradox significantly increases as elections become more closely contested. This paper aim to analyze the impact of election closeness on other best-known paradoxes of voting. Based on the Impartial Anonymous Culture (IAC) assumption, our preliminary results show that closeness has also a significant effect on the likelihood of observing the studied voting paradoxes in the class of scoring rules and scoring elimination rules. |
| Abstract: | L'impact des élections serrées sur la probabilité de paradoxe de monotonie a été récemment étudié par certains auteurs (e.g., Lepelley et al., 2018; Miller, 2017) . Il a été démontré que la fréquence d'un tel paradoxe augmente considérablement à mesure que les élections deviennent plus disputées. Le présent papier vise à analyser l'impact des élections serrées sur d'autres paradoxes de vote bien connus. En se basant sur l'hypothèse de la culture neutre et anonyme (IAC), nos résultats montrent que des élections serrées ont un effet significatif sur la probabilité d'observer les paradoxes de vote étudiés dans la classe des règles de scores et des règles de scores avec éliminations. |
| Keywords: | Voting paradoxes, Election closeness, Scoring Rules, Scoring Elimination Rules, Probability. |
| Date: | 2025–05–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04230359 |
| By: | Lucas Argentieri Mariani; Mattia Longhi; Silvia Marchesi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how enhanced government accountability can mitigate the political resource curse during capital windfalls. We exploit two quasi-natural experiments in South Africa: the countrys 2012 inclusion in the Citigroup World Government Bond Index (WGBI) and the leak of a major corruption scandal twelve years earlier. Contrary to evidence linking resource booms to favoritism, we find that preferential grant allocations to municipalities connected to cabinet members declined following the sovereign inflow. Heightened salience of past corruption strengthened accountability, driving these results. Our findings underscore the critical role of accountability in promoting equitable resource distribution during financial inflows. |
| Keywords: | Resource curse, Accountability, Favoritism, Elite capture, South Africa. |
| JEL: | D72 F32 H63 H72 H77 R11 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:552 |
| By: | Sarah Z. Daly |
| Abstract: | In post-war elections a large number of citizens vote for political parties with deep roots in the violent organizations of the past. However, despite the prevalence of rebel, militia, and military successor parties, their success varies dramatically. This study explores the correlates of civil war belligerent party performance in contexts emerging from ethnic wars fought over government control and over territory. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Ethnic conflict, Violence, Post-conflict |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-35 |
| By: | Daniel Stockemer; Gabriela Galassi; Engi Abou-El-Kheir |
| Abstract: | In recent years, significant efforts have been made to attract more women into academia and to support their careers, with the goal of increasing their representation. Using novel data for economics and political science, collected through web-scraping the corresponding departments of the top 50 universities worldwide, we document three key findings: (i) female scholars, on average, publish less and receive fewer citations than their male counterparts; (ii) this gap is smaller at junior ranks in both disciplines; and (iii) the gap decreases in departments with a higher proportion of female scholars, particularly in political science, where female faculty representation is generally higher compared to economics. Gaps do not differ significantly by field in economics, where a substantial proportion of women are concentrated in microeconomic subfields. Overall, our results underscore a persistent publication and citation gap between men and women in both disciplines, primarily driven by full professors, while suggesting that this gap diminishes in departments with greater sex balance among faculty. |
| Keywords: | Labour markets |
| JEL: | J16 I23 A14 J71 J44 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:25-13 |
| By: | Ricardo Dahis (Department of Economics, Monash University); Martin Mattsson (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore); Nathalia Sales (Department of Economics, PUC-Rio) |
| Abstract: | We revisit the literature about the impact of reelection incentives on corruption with an extended dataset of corruption audit reports classified with Large Language Model (LLM). We first show that correlations between the LLM-generated corruption measures and manually coded assessments are comparable to correlations among the manual datasets themselves. Our results support previous findings in the literature, although the result is only statistically significant for one out of three measures of corruption. We document significant heterogeneity in the effect over time and investigate several explanations for these empirical patterns, including changing composition of politicians and increasing probability of legal penalties. |
| Keywords: | reelection incentives, corruption, LLM |
| JEL: | D72 K42 O17 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2025-08 |
| By: | Sajayan, Gayatri |
| Abstract: | Until the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1919, voting rights for women in the US were not mandatory. Accordingly, many states refused women this privilege. However, the West appeared to be an exception, with all but one state in this region having granted female suffrage before federal enforcement. This paper seeks to understand the role of regional trends in female labour force participation in women’s enfranchisement, with a focus on the impact of occupational dispersion between 1880 - 1910. By exploring an avenue outside of religion and gender imbalances, an original contribution to existing literature on the success of Western women’s suffrage is provided. I utilise census data and governmental marital status statistics to conduct graphical analysis using cartography and complementary log-logistic regression analysis. The key finding of the paper is that women in Western states tended to be engaged in a narrow range of jobs – a consistent pattern found over the period of study. This helped them form a collective voice to fight for emancipation by facilitating mobilisation and more effective suffrage strategies. Hence, although the impact of women’s occupational dispersion is not found to be statistically significant, the relationship between the two variables is nevertheless historically meaningful. |
| JEL: | N31 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127205 |
| By: | Ajovalasit, Samantha; Consiglio, Andrea; Pagliardi, Giovanni; Zenios, Stauros Andrea |
| Abstract: | Political risk is a significant determinant of sovereign debt dynamics. We estimate the sensitivity of bond yields and economic growth to a country-level broad proxy of political risk and develop a stochastic debt sustainability analysis optimization model with both yields and growth channels to show that political risk can render debt unsustainable, triggered by changes in the political rating level, volatility, or both. In contrast, existing models that neglect political risk would incorrectly predict sustainability. Importantly, we uncover political risk effects in developed countries, going beyond the emerging markets of earlier literature. We establish a positive predictive relation of structural reforms to political ratings, and benchmark reforms against a large-scale quantitative easing program and find them comparably effective, highlighting their significance in restoring debt sustainability. We also establish the effect of political risk on the optimal choice of debt financing maturities. We validate the model out-of-sample on the Italian 2014-2019 reforms, showing that it would have predicted the country's debt more accurately than existing models. Likewise, a simulation of the French 2024 snap elections finds a much higher risk of debt unsustainability than that estimated if the political shock is omitted. |
| Keywords: | Debt management, debt sustainability, political risk, structural reforms |
| JEL: | E52 E62 F30 F34 G15 G18 H62 H63 H68 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eabhps:317786 |
| By: | Heckelman, Jac C; Wilson, Bonnie |
| Abstract: | Employing a political economy perspective, we seek to understand the seeming failure of aid to promote institutional reform. A la Stigler's theory of regulatory capture, we suppose that institutions are determined via a process of exchange and that special interest groups may capture institutions. We interpret grants of aid as a shock to the market for institutions and hypothesize that the impact of aid on institutional reform is conditional on the influence of groups. Based on a panel of 92 aid-receiving nations, we find evidence consistent with a political economy perspective and our hypothesis. In particular, we find that aid has had a positive impact on reform in countries with especially low levels of market-orientation in institutions and middling to large numbers of groups, and that aid has been associated with back-sliding on reform in many other countries. |
| Keywords: | aid, reform, institutions, special interest groups |
| JEL: | O1 O19 P11 |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124542 |