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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Maggie E. C. Jones (Queen?s University); Morten Ørregaard Nielsen (Queen?s University and CREATES); Michael Ksawery Popiel (Queen?s University) |
| Abstract: | We use a fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive model to examine the relationship between Canadian political support and macroeconomic conditions. This model is well suited for the analysis because it allows multiple fractional time series and admits simple asymptotic inference for the model parameters and tests of the hypotheses of interest. In the long-run equilibrium, we find that support for the Progressive Conservative Party was higher during periods of high interest rates and low unemployment, while support for the Liberal Party was higher during periods of low interest rates and high unemployment. We also test and reject the notion that party support is driven only by relative (to the United States) economic performance. Indeed, our findings suggest that US macroeconomic variables do not enter the long-run equilibrium of Canadian economic voting (political opinion poll support) at all. |
| Keywords: | Economic voting, fractional cointegration, political economy, vector autoregressive model |
| JEL: | C32 D72 |
| Date: | 2014–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2014-23&r=cdm |
| By: | Matthew W. McCarter (University of Texas – San Antonio and Economic Science Institute); Anya C. Samak (University of Wisconsin – Madison); Roman M. Sheremeta (Case Western Reserve University and the Economic Science Institute) |
| Abstract: | The current social dilemma literature lacks theoretical consensus regarding how individuals behave when facing multiple simultaneous social dilemmas. The divided-loyalty hypothesis, from organizational theory, predicts that cooperation will decline as individuals experience multiple social dilemmas with different compared to the same group members. The conditional-cooperation hypothesis, from behavioral economics, predicts that cooperation will increase as individuals experience multiple social dilemmas with different compared to the same group members. We employ a laboratory experiment to create consensus between these literatures and find support for the conditional-cooperation hypothesis. The positive effect of interacting with different group members comes from participants having an opportunity to shift their cooperative behavior from the less cooperative to the more cooperative group. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, conditional cooperation, defection, loyalty, experiments, public goods, social dilemmas |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:14-16&r=cdm |
| By: | Mario Jametti; Marcelin Joanis |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates the underlying determinants of expenditure decentralization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial decentralization. The analysis is based on an agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in the provision of a public good and voters are imperfectly informed about each government’s contribution to the good, creating a shared accountability problem. Under shared expenditure responsibility, the degree of decentralization is endogenous and depends on the relative political conditions prevailing at each level of government. Consistent with the model’s predictions, empirical results from a panel of Canadian provinces show that decentralization in a province increases with the electoral strength of the provincial government and decreases with the electoral strength of the federal government, in addition to being affected significantly by the partisan affiliation of both levels of government. A series of alternative empirical specifications, including an IV regression exploiting campaign spending data, are presented to assess the robustness of these results. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal decentralization, fiscal federalism, vertical interactions, partial decentralization, elections, |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2014s-28&r=cdm |
| By: | Edoardo Gallo |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a dynamic model of bargaining to analyze decentralized markets where buyers and sellers obtain information about past deals through their social network. There is a unique equilibrium outcome which depends crucially on the peripheral (least connected) individuals in each group. The main testable predictions are that groups with high density and/or low variability in the number of connections across individuals allow their members to obtain a better deal. These predictions are tested in a lab experiment through 4 treatments that vary the network that groups of 6 subjects are assigned to. The results of the experiment lend support to the theoretical predictions: subjects converge to a high equilibrium demand if they are assigned to a network that is dense and/or has low variability in number of connections across members. An extension explores an alternative set-up in which buyers and sellers belong to the same social network: if the network is regular and the agents are homogeneous then the unique equilibrium division is 50-50 |
| Keywords: | network, communication, experiment, noncooperative bargaining, 50-50 division |
| JEL: | C73 C78 C91 C92 D83 |
| Date: | 2014–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1431&r=cdm |
| By: | Alovsat Aliyev; A.G.Aliyev; R.O.Shahverdiyeva |
| Abstract: | high technology parksystem analysis, decision-making, information support systems, economic and mathematical modelingDetermination and management of the impact and role of innovation structures in economic development, as well as to improvement of decision-making process |
| Keywords: | Azerbaijan, Socio-economic development, Socio-economic development |
| Date: | 2013–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:005741:6082&r=cdm |
| By: | Bos, Frits; Teulings, Coen |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses five different types of forecasts by CPB: forecasts for next year, forecasts for next period of government, analyses of the sustainability of public finance, long-term scenarios and long-term effects of election platforms. CPB forecasts for next year and for the next period of government should be seen as well-motivated estimates based on all recent information, plausible assumptions and expected trends. The more distant the look into the future, the more uncertain are the forecasts. For such long-term analyses, the CPB employs scenarios, extended sensitivity analyses and identification of major political choices. Policy making is like sailing in fog. The regular set of CPB forecasts helps to look forward and to monitor whether a change of course is necessary. Despite fundamental uncertainty about the future, the CPB forecasts provide a good base for political discussions and decision making, like a coalition agreement, budget and wage rate negotiations and defining a long-term policy strategy. These forecasts inform Dutch society, reduce transaction costs in economic and political decision making, and foster consensus on economic and fiscal policy. |
| Keywords: | macroeconomic forecasting and government policy, accuracy of forecasts, uncertainty and public decision making, measurement in economics, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis |
| JEL: | A11 C0 D8 E17 F17 F47 G17 H68 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:57564&r=cdm |
| By: | Vilayat Valiyev |
| Abstract: | Decision making on selection of investment project is one of the necessary stages of project analysis. At this stage, a multiplicity of investment projects, various interlinkages and characteristics are ana-lyzed usually. In a general case, when there are a number of variations of a single project or a number of closely linked investment projects to assess, then it is necessary to consider all alternative options of realization of a given project or a pool of projects at the time of selection. The analysis of a group of investment projects and selection of the best one among those as well as ranking by attractiveness is carried out through a complex use of criteria of efficiency of investments. Decision making on selection of investment projects cannot be realized just through the use of one criterium only. Indeed, a character, purpose and requirements of each investment project are differ-ent, while the actual process is accompanied with uncertainty in most cases. In this case, no single criterium in isolation cannot provide sufficient information, based on which a decision can be made on the attractiveness of the project. It is possible only after analysis of the entire complex of criteria of efficiency of investments. As such, the most important and challenging task is to select the most priority investment projects as well as rank the projects by priority accounting for a multiplicity of factors with impact in the cir-cumstances of multicriteriality. For this purpose, in article the methodological aspect of common characteristic features of main stages and criteria of appraisal of economic effectiveness of investment projects were researched and for the first time a comprehensive approach was proposed to appraise and select a group of priority investment projects meeting requirements of various criteria of effectiveness accounting for impact of different technical, technological, economic, financial, organizational, political and other factors in the circumstances of fuzziness of situation, which enables the development of a more effective pro-gram of investments. We propose a new algorithm of selection of optimal project on the basis of relationship of preference by degree of relative quality of projects considered and with application of methods based on fuzzy multiplicities, fuzzy relaionship of preference and multicriteriality of selection enabling a single ap-proach to solving the problem: identification of degree of impact of various factors and finding a li-mited number of the most influential factors; assessment of impact of various factors on ranking of criteria by their relative importance; selection of a group of a more priority projects. The proposed methodology may be applied successfully in decision making on appraisal and selection of factors, criteria and projects for various sectors of economy. |
| Keywords: | Azerbaijan, Optimization models, Finance |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:006356:6950&r=cdm |
| By: | Cem Baslevent |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this study is to carry out descriptive and econometric analyses (at the province and district levels) to identify the urbanization–related determinants of the electoral success of the currently-ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The AKP is not only the dominant party in the Turkish party system, and but it also is believed to have benefited the most from the existing living conditions of the urban population, especially in the metropolitan areas. Our ultimate goal is to produce empirical findings that provide foresight on future political outcomes under various assumptions regarding education levels, birth rates, and migration patterns.In the absence of individual level data from a comprehensive nationwide survey designed specifically for the purpose of examining the relationships in question, the best alternative is to work with official socio-demographic and election data available at the levels of the major administrative units in Turkey. The empirical work involves the estimation of econometric models where the AKP vote share appears as the dependent variable. The findings from the province level analysis reveal that the available indicators are reasonably good predictors of the dependent variable. It turns out that the urbanization rate is positively related with the AKP vote share. This finding is in line with the hypothesis that the AKP has benefited the most from the existing living conditions of the urban population, especially in the metropolitan areas. To be more specific, the party has been particularly successful in identifying the worldviews and addressing the needs of conservative and generally-underprivileged masses of voters many of whom are first or second generation migrants. The district level analysis also yields results that are in line with our expectations regarding the socio-economic and cultural factors behind the AKP’s success. The high level of support for the party in parts of the province where lower-class native and migrant populations are concentrated is among the key findings of the econometric work. |
| Keywords: | Turkey, Socio-economic development, Labor market issues |
| Date: | 2013–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:005741:5960&r=cdm |
| By: | Temerario, Tiziana |
| Abstract: | In the real life groups, rather than individuals, take the most part of decisions. So that it is useful to study how groups take a decision in different strategic environments. This paper provides an overview of previous research about groups’ preferences over risk. I compare different experimental designs and examine their different results, focusing on how groups reach agreement in risky choices, compared with individuals. |
| Keywords: | Risk attitude; preferences; uncertainty; pairwise choice; review; groups; |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D81 |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:58079&r=cdm |
| By: | Ashish R. Hota; Siddharth Garg; Shreyas Sundaram |
| Abstract: | We study a common-pool resource game where the resource experiences failure with a probability that grows with the aggregate investment in the resource. To capture decision making under such uncertainty, we model each player's risk preference according to the value function from prospect theory. We show the existence and uniqueness of a pure strategy Nash equilibrium when the players have arbitrary (potentially heterogeneous) risk preferences and under natural assumptions on the rate of return and failure probability of the resource. Greater competition, vis-a-vis the number of players, increases the failure probability at the Nash equilibrium, and we quantify this effect by obtaining (tight) upper bounds on the failure probability at the equilibrium for a large number of players with respect to the failure probability under investment by a single player. We further examine the effects of heterogeneity in risk preferences of the players with respect to two characteristics of the prospect-theoretic value function: loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity. Heterogeneity in attitudes towards loss aversion always leads to higher failure probability of the resource at the equilibrium when compared to the case where players have identical risk preferences, whereas there is no clear trend under heterogeneity in the diminishing sensitivity parameter. |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1408.5951&r=cdm |
| By: | Mudrov, Sergei A. |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the dialogue of Churches and EU institutions, with a focus on the Churches' representations at the European Union. These representations are described in accordance with the confessional divisions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) is regarded as the most influential Catholic representation; among the Orthodox representations this status is kept by the representation of the Church of Greece, and among Protestant - the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). Overall, this paper finds that the existing patterns of cooperation constrain the Churches' ability to influence the process of decision-making in the EU. However, this influence may increase should the practical cooperation on the policy level acquire more intensive forms. -- |
| Keywords: | Christian Churches,European integration,Lisbon Treaty |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ekhdps:314&r=cdm |