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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Cantoni, Enrico; Pons, Vincent; Schäfer, Jérôme |
| Abstract: | In recent years, voter ID laws and convenience voting have generated heated partisan debates. To shed light on these policy issues, we survey the recent evidence on the institutional determinants and effects of voter turnout and broaden the perspective beyond the most debated rules. We begin by discussing the importance of electoral participation both for its consequences on policy choices and for democratic legitimacy. Building on a simple cost-benefit model of voting, we then review (quasi)-experimental work studying the effects of voting procedures and of other election rules. Voting procedures (which determine how people vote) primarily affect the cost of participation. The obstacles they create matter more when they occur ahead of the election, when the stakes are not salient (e.g., voter registration requirements), and less when parties mobilize voters against them and when alternative ways to vote exist (e.g., when people can choose whether to vote by mail or in person). Election rules upstream from the election (such as campaign finance laws) and downstream (such as the use of proportional representation vs. plurality rule to map vote choices into a set of election winners) mostly operate through benefits, for instance by affecting electoral competitiveness and the number of candidates. We conclude by highlighting questions for future research. |
| Keywords: | Voter turnout; Political institutions; Causal inference |
| JEL: | D72 D73 J15 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19447 |
| By: | How Choon, Thea; Marcolongo, Giovanna; Pinotti, Paolo |
| Abstract: | Pressure groups may use bribes, violence, or a combination of both to bend politics to their will, and the choice between these methods of influence can vary depending on the type of institutional regime. We empirically investigate the dynamics of bribes and violence around elections in democracies and autocracies using a novel measure of corruption based on the Panama Papers and other massive data leaks on offshore entities in tax havens, which are often used as vehicles for bribes, and data on attacks against politicians around the world between 1990 and 2015. Evidence from staggered difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity in time models shows that in democracies attacks against politicians escalate before elections, whereas in autocracies bribes increase after elections. These findings align with a theoretical framework in which pressure groups use political violence to sway democratic elections in favor of their preferred candidates, while resorting to bribes to influence the behavior of newly appointed bureaucrats and public officials in autocracies. |
| Keywords: | Elections; Violence; Corruption |
| JEL: | K42 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19416 |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron; Aksoy, Cevat Giray; Baysan, Ceren; Molina, Carlos; Zeki, Gamze |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether enduring authoritarian regimes are in part rooted in the population’s misperceptions about their social and economic costs–as opposed to a general preference for authoritarianism. We explore this question using online and field experiments in the context of Türkiye’s May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections. We confirm that voters, especially those supporting the incumbent authoritarian government systematically underestimate both the extent to which democracy and media freedom have been eroded in Türkiye and their usefulness in dealing with natural disasters and corruption (two salient issues in Türkiye). We find that providing (accurate) information about the state and implications of democracy and media freedom have significant effects on beliefs and increase the likelihood of voting for the opposition by about 3.7 percentage points (6.2 percent) in the online experiment. In the field experiment, the ballot-box level opposition vote share in neighborhoods receiving the information treatment increases by 0.8 percentage point (1.5 percent). Interestingly, both in the field and online, the results are driven not by further mobilizing opposition supporters, but by influencing those likely to vote for the governing coalition and those holding more misperceived beliefs about democracy and media freedom in Türkiye. The evidence suggests that at least part of the support for authoritarian regimes may be coming from misperceptions about their institutions and policies, and may be more malleable than typically presumed. |
| Keywords: | Democracy; Misperceptions; Elections; Institutions |
| JEL: | P16 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19536 |
| By: | Yatish Arya (Ashoka University); Anisha Garg (University of Waarwick) |
| Abstract: | Can civic infrastructure shape political competition? We study public parks in Delhi, combining electoral returns with novel data on the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization closely associated with the BJP. Using predetermined recreational land allocations from the 1962 Master Plan as an instrument for park access, we find that a one-standard-deviation increase raises the BJP-led alliance’s (BJP+) vote share by 1.92 percentage points and increases RSS presence. Yet this advantage is not fixed: across four Delhi elections from 2008 to 2020, the relationship between park access and BJP+ vote share is positive in three but weakens sharply in 2013, when the park-related advantage shifts toward the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which emerged from an anti-corruption movement that mobilized through public spaces. The findings suggest that civic infrastructure lowers the spatial costs of political organization, benefiting actors able to mobilize through it. |
| Date: | 2026–08–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ash:wpaper:167 |
| By: | Théo Konc; Jan Christoph Steckel; Jacob Edenhofer; Jens Ewald; Thomas Sterner |
| Abstract: | We study the political consequences of Germany's 2022–2023 electricity price increases using four waves of original panel data. Identification exploits the German billing system, under which suppliers raise monthly instalment payments at dates plausibly exogenous to household characteristics. In a staggered difference-in-differences design with later-treated households as controls, those facing an above-median increase become 7.5 percentage points more likely to support the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The shift persists, and attitudes, including support for climate policy, adjust only afterwards. This response emerges even though no climate policy caused the shock, households could not anticipate it, parties at both political extremes opposed the underlying sanctions, and compensation was generous. We interpret our reduced-form results in a spatial voting framework in which the loss raises the value of a party's promise of lower future energy costs. Our results imply that the standard welfare-economic separation of efficiency from distribution can carry a political cost even when compensation is generous and non-distortionary. |
| Keywords: | political backlash, energy price increase, right wing populism, panel data |
| JEL: | C23 D30 D63 D72 H23 H50 Q40 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12887 |
| By: | Dwenger, Nadja; Sjursen, Ingrid Hoem; Vietz, Jasmin |
| Abstract: | Many societies aim to design policies based on meritocratic fairness, which involves two principles: (i) paying individuals with equal performance equally (fair equality) and (ii) paying individuals with higher performance more (fair inequality). Yet, often it is impossible to respect both simultaneously. This paper provides novel evidence on the importance individuals attach to each principle from a large-scale experiment in the United States. We document large heterogeneity in preferences. Individuals incur substantial personal costs to implement their preferred principle. Republican supporters are more likely to prefer fair inequality. The findings offer insights into the political economy of redistribution and public policy design. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19472 |
| By: | Lamoreaux, Naomi; Wallis, John |
| Abstract: | We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the incentives for those in power to manipulate the economy for political ends and thus often negatively affects economic growth. We argue that the key to getting beyond these pernicious effects—to reconciling democracy and capitalism—is to move to a governance structure based on impersonal rules that apply in the same way to everyone (or at least to broad categories of everyone). We lay out the theoretical basis for this argument and illustrate it with evidence about how the transformation worked (or not) in the case of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. |
| JEL: | N00 K00 P0 P1 P4 P48 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19446 |
| By: | Ornelas, Emanuel |
| Abstract: | I study how political competition affects the feasibility of free trade agreements (FTAs). I show that the possibility of political turnover creates strategic motivations for the formation of FTAs. Specifically, a government facing a high enough probability of losing power will have an incentive to form a trading bloc to “tie the hands†of its successor. This incentive mitigates inefficiencies in the incumbent’s decision to form FTAs, regardless of its bias toward special interests. An FTA can affect the likelihood of political turnover as well. Accounting for that effect, I show that an incumbent party with a known bias toward special interests could seek an FTA as a commitment device toward less distortionary policies, thereby enhancing its own electoral prospects. Overall, the analysis reveals the importance of considering the time horizon of policymakers when studying their decision to enter in FTAs. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19597 |
| By: | Cohen, Alma; Dehejia, Rajeev |
| Abstract: | We examine how politicization and polarization influence judicial review within U.S. Federal appellate courts. Analyzing over 400, 000 cases from 1985 to 2020, we find that judges' political alignment or misalignment with trial judges increasingly affect their decisions, particularly in the last two decades. This trend is significant in precedential cases: panels of Democratic judges are 6.9 percentage points more likely to reverse Republican trial judges compared to Democratic ones, whereas Republican panels are 3.6 percentage points less likely to reverse fellow Republican judges. This effect persists across ideological and non-ideological cases and even among judges appointed before 2000. |
| Keywords: | Judicial decisions |
| JEL: | K0 H0 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19487 |
| By: | Bellani, Luna; Hager, Anselm; Maurer, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Did Southern elites' economic losses from abolition translate into diminished political influence? Using novel census-linked data on state lawmakers across four slave-owning and two Northern states (1850-1880), we document a striking paradox: despite the massive wealth shock of emancipation, the political influence of former slave owners increased during Reconstruction and its aftermath. We show that former slave owners won office at similar rates as in the antebellum period and secured more committee assignments. Comparable patterns are not visible among wealthy legislators in Northern comparison states. This suggests that Southern elites responded to economic loss by tightening their grip on formal political institutions. Our findings point to formal political institutions as one channel through which defeated economic elites preserved influence during Reconstruction and its aftermath. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cexwps:342477 |
| By: | Kim, Minseong |
| Abstract: | Bayesian finite-mixture election-forensics models in the tradition of Mebane (2016) classify vote-counting units as clean or fraudulent from aggregate turnout and vote-share data alone, without independent evidence of manipulation. We evaluate the eforensics quasi-binomial-logistic (qbl) model against 20 years of Korean elections (2002-2025), fitting 228 separate model runs spanning general and presidential elections, two aggregation levels, up to five vote-counting channels, and, critically, two independently constructed fraud-free synthetic controls calibrated to match each real dataset's turnout and vote-share marginals without any fraud-generating mechanism. We find that the model reports substantial "fraud" (5-31% of units, up to 8.7 million "fraudulent" votes) on data that is fraud-free by construction; that real-data fraud-share estimates correlate at r=0.98 with their fraud-free null counterparts across 58 paired cells; that the model's largest real-data estimates fall on presidential elections held before Korea had early voting or any fraud allegations (2002-2012), exceeding what it reports for the actually contested 2020 election; and that recoding the model to test fraud in the opposite (conservative-favoring) direction reproduces the identical pathology, including assigning more false-positive fraud to the one pre-2014 election with a genuine historical manipulation allegation than to the allegation's own claimed direction. We conclude that the model's output depends on the shape of the (turnout, vote-share) distribution, not on fraud, and that this failure is not fixable by post-hoc recalibration, since recalibrating for validity would remove essentially all detected signal in the corpus. |
| Date: | 2026–07–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6ka47_v1 |
| By: | Hubert János Kiss (ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest); Alfonso Rosa-García (Universidad de Murcia) |
| Abstract: | We study whether political regime type is associated with public attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI). Using nationally representative surveys from 47 countries (2024–2025) and the EIU Democracy Index as our primary measure of regime quality, we relate democracy to three outcomes: AI acceptance, perceived trustworthiness and trust in AI. We find a negative association between democracy and all three outcomes that attenuates yet persists after adding country-level sociodemographics and AI literacy. Results are robust to alternative regime measures and to replacing contemporaneous democracy with lagged democracy measured prior to the AI boom. They also hold when accounting for cultural differences using an individualism–collectivism index. Finally, we show that democracy partly accounts for the AI acceptance premium recently documented in emerging countries. |
| Keywords: | AI acceptance, AI literacy, Cross-country survey, Democracy, Political regime, Trust in AI, Trustworthiness of AI |
| JEL: | C21 D83 O33 P50 Z10 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2515 |
| By: | Yang, Dean (University of Michigan); Saia, Alessandro (University of Bologna); Kovvuri, Akhila (Stanford University); Ahmed, Resuf (Stanford University); Brimble, Paul (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | How does strengthened religious identity affect society and politics? We study the impact of "Ramayan, " the massively popular televised version of the Hindu epic. We conduct difference-in-differences analyses, measuring Ramayan exposure with TV signal strength in Indian localities at the time of airing in 1987. Localities with higher Ramayan exposure saw persistently strengthened Hindu religious identity, measured by the names given to newborns; increases in Hindu-Muslim communal violence during the Hindu-nationalist mobilization of the early 1990s; and longer-run increases in electoral success for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. A battery of tests indicates these effects reflect exposure to Ramayan specifically, rather than television generally. Areas with greater exposure also saw increased presence of Hindu religious schools, a potential channel behind the long-run persistence of effects. |
| Keywords: | political economy, religion, mass media, television, elections, violence, nationalism, culture, India |
| JEL: | D72 P16 Z12 |
| Date: | 2026–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idd:wpaper:2 |
| By: | Calacino, Anthony (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Do competitive local elections impact environmental protections in consolidating democracies? Existing research on protections, and public goods more generally, remains divided. Also, past research tends to overlook how local politicians rarely control environmental stringency unilaterally. This paper contributes on both fronts. First, it argues the effect of competition depends on politicians' expectations of a voter backlash. In competitive contexts, incumbents face demands for private goods from special interests, which often requires limiting environmental protections. Politicians are more likely to give into these demands when the consequences are unlikely to become salient to voters. The second point is that even when local politicians lack complete control over protections, they can turn to a strategy this paper calls ``suppressing the state'', whereby mayors interrupt other authorities' attempts to provide public goods. The theory is tested by studying forest protections in the Brazilian Amazon. I leverage the unpredictability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and effects on smoke from fires as plausibly exogenous variation in visibility of degradation for causal identification. The analysis shows competition decreases deforestation when weather conditions exacerbate fires and smoke, but it increases deforestation when weather conditions render externalities of deforestation less visible. Qualitative analysis of over 100 expert interviews complements the quantitative results, supporting the idea that mayors suppress federal enforcement officials when fires from deforestation are set to be mild. The findings clarify local electoral dynamics and environmental governance with wider implications for the study of the politics of public goods. |
| Date: | 2026–07–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:b3w8q_v1 |
| By: | Selva Demiralp; Orkun Saka; Michael Weber |
| Abstract: | We study how politically polarized television news shapes household inflation expectations in Turkey. We combine new household panel data with transcript-based measures of channel-level inflation coverage during prime-time news and a large-scale randomized information experiment. Inflation coverage differs sharply across politically aligned channels, and viewers sort into outlets consistent with their political affiliations. Within-person estimates show that greater coverage on a respondent’s initially preferred channel leads to higher inflation expectations, with effects concentrated among viewers of politically neutral channels. Experimental evidence indicates that belief updating depends on prior anchoring as well as on source credibility and reveals the political costs of rising inflation expectations. |
| Keywords: | inflation, expectations, media, polarization |
| JEL: | D84 E31 E52 E58 L82 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12854 |
| By: | Machielsen, Bas; van Besouw, Bram |
| Abstract: | We study the fiscal and educational consequences of franchise extension using the administratively arbitrary sorting of Dutch municipalities into nine voter-eligibility classes by the 1896 Electoral Law. Larger suffrage expansions contracted municipal expenditure and revenue and cut education spending, the largest budget heading. Public-school fees fell sharply while public pupils, schools, and class size did not change, so a smaller budget was spread over unchanged public provision and the saving passed to parents. Administrative records for 1905--1907 show that private pupil and teacher stocks expanded and the private share of teaching staff rose, while public stocks stood still inside a growing system. Neither a rise in the appeal of confessional schooling nor a fall in public teachers per pupil accounts for this. Teacher vacancy advertisements show private schools raising salaries while public councils increasingly rested on the statutory minimum. Democratization reorganized primary education rather than enlarging or shrinking it. |
| Keywords: | democratization, political economy, education, public goods, public economics |
| JEL: | N43 H75 I22 D72 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:342692 |
| By: | McCarty, Nolan; Steel, Reilly (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the text of 1, 694, 664 securities disclosures for 15, 105 publicly traded companies to understand the political forces behind the rise and fall of corporate commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the United States. Starting with the rise, we find that the ideological composition of corporate leadership was a strong and persistent predictor of DEI commitments, which we argue reflects a plausible causal relationship. Ownership by the "Big Three" asset managers was also associated with corporate DEI commitments, both within and across firms, during the era when these investors vocally supported DEI. Presidential politics appears to have contributed to the fall: federal contractors pulled back more in 2025, consistent with the new administration targeting contractor DEI programs. However, the retreat was broad, suggesting the importance of larger political, legal, and social forces. Our results underscore the importance of corporate governance for the study of political economy. |
| Date: | 2026–07–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5tgcs_v1 |
| By: | Adsera, Alicia (Princeton University); Arenas, Andreu (University of Barcelona); Boix, Carles (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | We examine how individuals value political and economic goods and institutions through a conjoint experiment in eight countries: Argentina, urban China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States. Respondents choose between societies that randomly vary in personal and country income, inequality, social mobility, safety, public healthcare, and free elections. We estimate marginal effects and willingness to pay for outcomes at the country and respondent levels. Valuations of personal and country incomes and safety are similar across countries. By contrast, the value of democracy, defined as free elections, varies substantially. The average Chinese respondent is willing to give up democracy for an increase in individual income equal to one quarter of average country income, whereas the average American would do so only for twice the U.S. average country income. Unlike income and safety, for which most individual-level variation is explained by personal characteristics, variation in preferences for free elections is substantially explained by respondents’ country. Our findings contribute to research on human preferences, demand for democratic institutions, and policy and redistributive preferences. |
| Keywords: | democracy, safety, willingness to pay, conjoint experiment, income |
| JEL: | H11 H51 I13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18844 |
| By: | Agbeyangi, Babatunde A.; Ogunnusi, Oluwatobi N.; Oluseye, Abiodun B. |
| Abstract: | There is an urgent need for Nigeria to continue leading the way in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for governing their election processes in the midst of current reforms in election administration. This paper explores the contribution that can be made by the application of new advances in AI technology towards the process of election administration in Nigeria. It looks into the present status of election administration in Nigeria, the current literature of AI application in election administration, and possible fields of application of AI in election administration. Data on the possible uses of AI advances in election administration was gathered through a survey of 396 Nigerian voters, stakeholders, and election managers. The results shed light on the advantages and difficulties of implementing AI breakthroughs in Nigerian election administration, especially in the area of fraud prevention and enhancing the integrity of the electoral process in Nigeria. According to the study, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should employ AI to lessen and finally eradicate electoral fraud and corruption. |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3b2uf_v1 |
| By: | Serene Ho; Christine Liu; Jingtian Chen; In Song Kim |
| Abstract: | This project examines how political institutions and firm characteristics jointly shape the import tariffs applied to goods entering the United States. Using Longitudinal Firm Trade Transaction Database (LFTTD) linked to WTO tariff schedules and Policy IV measures of importing-country democracy, we study whether multinational corporations (MNCs) systematically import from less-democratic countries, and whether they face systematically different tariff rates compared with other U.S. importers as a result. The findings of this project demonstrate how firm-level heterogeneity and political institutions jointly determine the structure of trade protection at the border. |
| Keywords: | LFTTD, LBD, CMF |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:tnotes:26-28 |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new framework for studying the interplay between culture and institutions. We interpret culture as a repertoire, consisting of (cultural) attributes and allowing rich cultural responses to political changes. Combinations of attributes produce cultural configurations, which provide social meaning, coordination and political justification. Our framework has several distinctive features. First, it proposes a “systems approach" to culture: the meaning and function of attributes are determined within the whole configuration and political equilibrium. Second, it emphasizes discontinuous or “saltational" changes in culture – rather than gradual, evolutionary changes – as attributes are reconnected and acquire new meanings in response to evolving circumstances and as outcomes in ongoing "cultural struggles". Third, our framework puts the spotlight on how fluidly different cultures can respond to conditions, depending on the nature of their attributes and constraints on their connections. Finally, it enriches the study of the co-determination of political, institutional and cultural outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Attributes; Culture; Discontinuity; Fluidity; Institutions |
| JEL: | P16 P50 O10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19518 |
| By: | Ekaterina Siniakova (University of Amsterdam); Oda Sund (Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation); Joël van der Weele (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Inequality statistics highlight specific aspects of economic reality. Economists traditionally rely on technical indices such as the Gini coefficient, valued for their formal properties. More recently, scholars have emphasized measures like the income share of the Top 10%, which more directly evoke political conflict. We investigate whether inequality metrics shape public perceptions and support for redistribution, and how they are used in the media. In an online experiment (N = 1, 246) among the general public, we show that "political'' measures reduce acceptance of inequality relative to the Gini coefficient, which itself has a desensitizing effect on fairness and emotional ratings. The behavioral effect of switching from the Gini to the Top 10\% share is quantitatively similar to switching 0.12-0.17 Gini points, e.g. from an equal society like the Netherlands to much more unequal Argentina. Academic experts and policy makers are less susceptible, but not immune to the metric effect, and predict a strong behavioral effect on the general public. Finally, we show that left-wing media are more likely to report top-share metrics and less likely to report the Gini coefficient than right-wing media, likely amplifying political divisions. Our findings show that inequality statistics do not merely describe economic reality, but shape normative assessments of the income distribution. |
| JEL: | C91 D63 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–08–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20260050 |
| By: | Dahis, Ricardo; Szerman, Christiane |
| Abstract: | Changes in political boundaries aimed at devolving power to local governments are common across many countries. We examine the economic impacts of government unit creation through splitting. Exploiting reforms that led to sharp increases in the number of municipalities in Brazil, we show that voluntary splitting enlarges the public sector, enhances public service delivery, and stimulates long-term economic activity in new local governments. These gains are not offset by losses elsewhere and are stronger in peripheral, remote, and underdeveloped areas neglected by parent governments. Higher fiscal revenues and decentralized decision-making contribute to the positive effects on local economic activity. |
| JEL: | D72 H41 H75 H76 H77 Q53 R51 |
| Date: | 2026–07–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128401 |
| By: | Mehrotra, Santosh (Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The impending post-2026 delimitation exercise revived concerns over allocation of Lok Sabha (LS) seats among Indian states. Article 81 of the Constitution envisages representation proportional to population, with similar population–seat ratios across states. This posed few difficulties in 1951 or 1971. Subsequent decades witnessed sharp interstate divergence in population growth. States that achieved fertility decline & population stabilisation earlier now risk losing political influence relative to states with higher population growth. This paper argues that a purely population-based allocation formula is no longer adequate for preserving federal balance. It proposes a two-part approach: the existing allocation of 543 LS seats should remain unchanged. Additional seats created through LS expansion should be distributed based on a Demographic Performance (DemPer) principle derived from the logic of the 84th Constitutional Amendment, which recognised states' population stabilisation efforts. The paper develops a DemPer framework based on states' fertility transitions. It also creates scope for implementing women's reservation through a hybrid First-Past-the-Post – Proportional Representation electoral mechanism. |
| Keywords: | delimitation, Lok Sabha, parliamentary representation, federalism, demographic transition, population stabilisation, seat allocation, political representation, women's reservation, electoral reform, India |
| JEL: | D72 H77 J13 D71 P16 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18753 |
| By: | Campedelli, Gian Maria; Daniele, Gianmarco; Le Moglie, Marco |
| Abstract: | Detection is one of the main challenges in the fight against organized crime. We show that machine learning can be used to predict mafias infiltration in Italian local governments, as measured by the dismissal of city councils infiltrated by organized crime. The model successfully predicts up to 96% of out-of-sample municipalities previously identified as infiltrated by mafias, up to two years earlier, making this index a valuable tool for identifying municipalities at risk of infiltration well in advance. Furthermore, we can identify “high-risk†local governments that may be infiltrated by organized crime but have not been detected by the state, thereby improving the efficacy of detection. We then apply this new time-varying measure of organized crime to investigate the underlying causes of this type of rent-seeking. As criminals infiltrate politics to capture public resources, we study how a positive shock in public spending (European Union transfers), affects this phenomenon. Employing a geographic Difference-in-Discontinuities design, we find a substantial and lasting increase in the predicted risk of mafia infiltration (up to 14 p.p.), emphasizing the unintended effects of delivering aid where criminal organizations can appropriate public funds. |
| Keywords: | Crime; Corruption; Politics; Elections |
| JEL: | D72 K4 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19322 |
| By: | Millemaci, Emanuele; Monteforte, Fabio; Temple, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | The short answer is: probably not. We infer the priorities of national governments from observed outcomes, constructing a statistical proxy for long-term benevolence. Using data between 1960 and 2019 for more than 100 countries, we show that, on average, democracies score more highly on our measure. We then investigate whether variation in long-term benevolence can explain the ‘autocratic gamble’ - the well-known tendency for growth rates to vary more widely across autocracies than across democracies. We show that the distribution of long-term benevolence under democracy first-order stochastically dominates its distribution under autocracy. Put differently, although there is an autocratic gamble in growth rates, there is no autocratic gamble in wider development outcomes. The rapid growth seen in some autocracies probably originates in regime self-interest rather than unusually benevolent leadership. |
| Keywords: | Democracy; Autocracy |
| JEL: | H11 O40 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19499 |