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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Matteo Gamalerio, Massimo Morelli, Margherita Negri |
| Abstract: | We show that policies using plurality rule to elect their policymakers are more likely to adopt more restrictive immigration policies than those using dual-ballot systems. Plurality rule provides stronger incentives for right-wing, anti-immigrant parties to run alone, as opposed to joining a coalition with other right-wing parties that offer a less restrictive immigration policy. We prove the result theoretically and empirically. Our theoretical results hold with sincere and strategic voters, with and without endogenous turnout, and can be extended to the comparison between plurality rule and proportional representation without majority bonuses in parliamentary elections. Empirically, we combine municipal-level data on migration-related expenditures and mayoral elections and establish causality using a regression discontinuity design. |
| Keywords: | Electoral Rules, Immigration, Salience |
| JEL: | D72 J24 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp25260 |
| By: | Clinton, Joshua D. (Vanderbilt University); Huang, TzuFeng |
| Abstract: | Political prediction markets have exploded in size and influence, moving billions of dollars and shaping how journalists, donors, and voters interpret electoral odds. If these prices truly capture rational expectations, they should efficiently aggregate information about political outcomes. But do they? We analyze more than 2, 500 political prediction markets traded across the Iowa Electronic Markets, Kalshi, PredictIt, and Polymarket during the final five weeks of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign involving more than than two billion dollars in transactions to assess whether prices accurately and efficiently aggregate political information. While 93% of PredictIt markets correctly predicted outcomes better than chance, accuracy fell to 78% on Kalshi and 67% on Polymarket. Even the most accurate markets showed little evidence of efficiency: prices for identical contracts diverged across exchanges, daily price changes were weakly correlated or negatively autocorrelated, and arbitrage opportunities peaked in the final two weeks before Election Day. Together, these findings challenge the view that prediction markets necessarily efficiently and accurately aggregate information about political outcomes. |
| Date: | 2025–12–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:d5yx2_v1 |
| By: | Wintemute, Garen J.; Robinson, Sonia L; Crawford, Andrew; Schleimer, Julia P; Tancredi, Daniel J.; Shev, Aaron B.; Tomsich, Elizabeth A.; Wright, Mona A.; Velasquez, Bradley; Cruz, Shaina Sta |
| Abstract: | Background: From 2022 to 2024, an annual, nationally representative, longitudinal survey in the United States (US) found high prevalences of support for and willingness to engage in political violence, with differences by party affiliation. The November 2024 US federal election replaced a Democratic administration with a Republican one, led by a president who has repeatedly endorsed use of force by the government against civilians. This study examines changes in support for and willingness to engage in political violence from mid-2024 to mid-2025. Methods: Survey participants were adult (age ≥ 18 years as of recruitment in 2022) members of Ipsos Knowledge Panel. Wave 4 was conducted May 23-June 13, 2025. The primary analysis generated findings for the cohort as a whole. In a secondary analysis, respondents were categorized by self-reported political party and Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement affiliations. Principal outcome measures comprised self-reported justification for political violence, personal willingness to engage in political violence, and expectation of firearm use in future political violence. Results for 2025 were presented as weighted prevalences with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Change from 2024 to 2025 was estimated based on the means of aggregated individual change scores for each outcome measure. Results: The 2025 completion rate was 89.9% (8, 248 respondents/9, 179 invitees). For the cohort as a whole, there were only small increases from 2024 to 2025 in the prevalence of the belief that violence was usually or always justified to advance at least 1 of 20 political objectives (2024: 32.3%, 95% CI 31.0%, 33.6%; 2025: 35.6%, 95% CI 34.1%, 37.0%) and to advance 16 of 20 specified objectives when these were assessed individually. There were no changes in the prevalence of high-level personal willingness to commit political violence or in expectation of firearm use in future political violence. Despite some increases in support for political violence from 2024 to 2025 among Democrats, MAGA Republicans in 2025 were substantially more likely than strong Democrats to consider violence usually or always justified to advance at least 1 of 20 political objectives (MAGA Republicans 52.2%, 95% CI 48.4%, 56.1%; strong Democrats 32.1%, 95% CI 28.6%, 35.6%) and to advance 10 of those objectives when objectives were considered individually. MAGA Republicans and strong Democrats did not differ in 2025 in the percentages that were very or completely willing to commit political violence by level of severity or against any target population. A small group of non-Republican MAGA supporters had higher prevalences than most other groups on many measures. Conclusions: Support for and willingness to commit political violence increased only modestly from 2024 to 2025 and, where differences existed, remained generally higher among MAGA movement affiliates and Republicans than among Democrats. These findings can help focus prevention efforts. |
| Date: | 2025–12–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:bzah4_v1 |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Gouveia, Miguel |
| Abstract: | The political economy setting of voting over general nonlinear income taxes with labor disincentives and information asymmetry in consumer/worker/voter types is considered. The economy is the realization of a finite draw from a continuous distribution. The revenue required from a draw is determined by Pareto optimal provision of a public good for that draw. Assuming that the government must meet the revenue requirement for any possible draw, in other words the tax is robust, a majority rule equilibrium is shown to exist at the median voter's preferred tax function out of this robust set. |
| Keywords: | Voting; Income taxation; Public good; Robustness |
| JEL: | D72 D82 H21 H41 |
| Date: | 2025–10–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126649 |
| By: | Raul Caruso (Dipartimento di Politica Economica, DISCE, & International Peace Science Center (IPSC), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy); Emma Galli (Department of Social and Economic Science, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy); Giulia Tringali (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy - International Peace Science Center (IPSC), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates the relationship between corruption and political violence in 49 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1970-2020. Specifically, it examines whether corruption influences both the incidence and the brutality of political violence. To address this question, the study employs an articulated estimation strategy: first, we analyze the impact of corruption on political violence incidence and brutality by using count data models (Negbin and ZINB) and a LPM; then we also employ an IV estimation for the OLS model and a Two-stage Residual inclusion (2SRI) estimation. Across the different specifications, our findings highlight a strong and positive relation between political corruption and both the incidence and brutality of political violence. Control variables present the expected relations with the dependent variable and in particular, we also focus on climate change. By employing also interaction terms between SPEI and corruption, the results suggest that an increase in precipitations in corrupted countries leads to and increase of violence. In addition, our main results show that past corruption level has a great impact on today violence, while past extreme weather events do not. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, Political Violence, Terrorism, Climate Change, Count Models, ZINB, 2SRI |
| JEL: | D73 D74 P00 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie5:dipe0053 |
| By: | Steven Kivinen (University of Graz, Austria); Norovsambuu Tumennasan (Dalhousie University, Canada) |
| Abstract: | Generalized median voter (GMV) rules on the single-peaked preference domain are group strategy-proof. We show that if incomplete information coexists with the ability to commit to coalitional agreements, then GMV rules can be susceptible to insincere voting by groups with heterogeneous beliefs. We identify strategic compromise as a novel source of insincere voting in this environment. Our two main results characterize the set of fair, efficient, and robust voting rules: those that ensure sincere voting under asymmetric information and coalition formation. Each result uses a different notion of robustness, and both give (at most) two alternatives special treatment, with the remaining alternatives chosen according to a type of consensus. |
| Keywords: | robust group strategy-proofness, voting, median voter |
| JEL: | C71 C78 D70 D80 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2025-15 |
| By: | Alistair Pattison |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a novel summary measure of ideological polarization in the American public based on the joint distribution of survey responses. Intuitively, polarization is maximized when views are concentrated at opposing extremes with little mass in between and when opinions are highly correlated across many issues. Using this measure, I show that public polarization has been increasing for the past three decades and that these changes are mostly due to increases in general disagreement, not dimensional collapse. Furthermore, these increases are not explained by the diverging opinions of Democrats and Republicans, nor divergence of opinions across gender, geography, education, or any other demographic divide. |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.00955 |
| By: | Levin Hornischer (LMU - Ludwig Maximilian University [Munich] = Ludwig Maximilians Universität München); Zoi Terzopoulou (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - EM - EMLyon Business School - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Can neural networks be applied in voting theory, while satisfying the need for transparency in collective decisions? We propose axiomatic deep voting: a framework to build and evaluate neural networks that aggregate preferences, using the wellestablished axiomatic method of voting theory. Our findings are: (1) Neural networks, despite being highly accurate, often fail to align with the core axioms of voting rules, revealing a disconnect between mimicking outcomes and reasoning. ( 2) Training with axiom-specific data does not enhance alignment with those axioms. (3) By solely optimizing axiom satisfaction, neural networks can synthesize new voting rules that often surpass and substantially differ from existing ones. This offers insights for both fields: For AI, important concepts like bias and value-alignment are studied in a mathematically rigorous way; for voting theory, new areas of the space of voting rules are explored. |
| Keywords: | Voting theory, Neural networks |
| Date: | 2025–08–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05395413 |
| By: | Abid, Senan |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the determinants and dynamics of military spending in the Middle East within the framework of critical political economy, based on data covering the period (1995-2023). The analysis combines approaches from political economy, the rentier-authoritarian state theory, and critical geopolitics to explain the link between armament, authoritarian structures, and international alliances rather than objective security threats. The findings suggest that the persistently high levels of military spending in the region are largely used as instruments to maintain power structures and sustain strategic alliances, rather than merely to enhance defense capabilities. The diversification of arms suppliers toward Russia and China appears not to have reduced dependency but instead to have added further logistical and strategic complexity. The study also indicates a tendency toward a negative association between military spending and the indicators of democracy, development, and political stability, highlighting the prevailing priority of "regime security" over "state security." Overall, the paper argues that patterns of armament in the Middle East reflect a hybrid political- economic configuration that perpetuates the security dilemma at both the regional and international levels. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, Military Spending, Middle East, Rentier State, Authoritarianism, Security Dilemma, Geopolitics, International Alliances |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:333942 |
| By: | Pietro Salmaso; Bernardo Moreno; Dolors Berga |
| Abstract: | We assume that a finite set of alternatives can be described by an ordered set of characteristics and offer a general version of lexicographicity that incorporates the possibility that agents' preferences over characteristics are not separable (the desirability of a characteristic does not depend on other characteristics). We first characterize all strategy-proof rules as a family of sequential rules by committees, with the particularity that the committee used in the decision over each characteristic may depend on the decision about previous ones. Our characterization does not require imposing voter sovereignty and the rules may incorporate restrictions over the alternatives to be selected. Then, we obtain the subclass of anonymous rules that where the committees are quota committees. Finally, we demonstrate that the only anonymous and strategy-proof rules that select a Condorcet winner are the subclass of sequential rules by majority (quota) committees. |
| Keywords: | anonymity, Condorcet winner, lexicographic preferences, sequential rules by committee, strategy-prooofnes |
| JEL: | D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1541 |