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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Irem Bozbay (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the problem of aggregating judgments over multiple interconnected issues. Voters share a common preference for reaching true collective judgments, but hold private information about what the truth might be. Information conflicts may occur both between and within voters. Following Bozbay, Dietrich and Peters (2014), we assume strategic voting in a Bayesian voting game setting and we want to determine voting rules which induces an ecient Bayesian Nash equilibrium in truthful strategies, hence lead to collective judgments that efficiently incorporate all private information. Unlike in judgment aggregation problems with two independent issues where it is always possible to aggregate information eciently, efficient information aggregation is not always possible with interconnected issues. We characterize the (rare) situations in which such rules exist, as well as the nature of these rules. |
| JEL: | C70 D70 D71 D80 D82 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sur:surrec:0916&r=cdm |
| By: | Gersbach, Hans; Schneider, Maik; Tejada, Oriol |
| Abstract: | We examine the effects of a novel political institution called Coalition Preclusion Contracts (CPCs) on the functioning of democracies with proportional representation. CPCs enable political parties to credibly exclude one or several parties from the range of coalitions they are prepared to envisage after elections. We consider a simple political game with a two-dimensional policy space in which three parties compete to form the government. We find that CPCs with a one-party exclusion rule defend the interests of the majority by precluding coalition governments that would include so-called extreme parties. This translates into moderation of the policies implemented and yields welfare gains for a large set of parameter values. We discuss the robustness of the results in more general settings and study how party-exclusion rules have to be adjusted when more than three parties compete in an election. |
| Keywords: | coalition formation; elections; government formation.; political contracts |
| JEL: | D72 D82 H55 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11492&r=cdm |
| By: | Sebastian Galiani; Nadya Hajj; Pablo Ibarraran; Nandita Krishnaswamy; Patrick J. McEwan |
| Abstract: | We analyzed two conditional cash transfers experiments that preceded Honduran presidential elections in 2001 and 2013. In the first, smaller transfers had no effects on voter turnout or incumbent vote share. In the second, larger transfers increased turnout and incumbent share in similar magnitudes, consistent with the mobilization of the incumbent party base rather than vote switching. Moreover, we found that turnout and incumbent share increased when cumulative payments were similar, but larger payments were made closer to the elections. As in prior lab experiments, individuals seem to overweight “peak” and “end” payments in their retrospective estimation of net benefits. We further argue that a model of intrinsically-reciprocal voters is most consistent with the findings. |
| JEL: | H3 I38 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22588&r=cdm |
| By: | Sergio Currarini; Carmen Marchiori; Alessandro Tavoni |
| Abstract: | Local interactions and network structures appear to be a prominent feature of many environmental problems. This paper discusses a wide range of issues and potential areas of application, including the role of relational networks in the pattern of adoption of green technologies, common pool resource problems characterized by a multiplicity of sources, the role of social networks in multi-level environmental governance, infrastructural networks in the access to and use of natural resources such as oil and natural gas, the use of networks to describe the internal structure of inter-country relations in international agreements, and the formation of bilateral “links” in the process of building up an environmental coalition. For each of these areas, we examine why and how network economics would be an effective conceptual and analytical tool, and discuss the main insights that we can foresee. |
| Keywords: | networks; environmental externalities; technological diffusion; gas pipelines; common-pool-resources; multi-level governance; coalitions |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:63951&r=cdm |
| By: | J. Stephen Ferris (Department of Economics, Carleton University); Bharatee B. Dash (National Institute of Public Finance and Policy) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we argue that the search for opportunism in government budgets is weakened by the absence of a strong reason for why such expenditures should be restricted solely to the period leading into the next election. Here we argue that the need to fulfill a set of election platform promises in combination with the characteristic that some budget items better attract the attention of voters (with deteriorating memories) will lead to a predictable reallocation of budgetary spending across the life of a government. Our test for a predictable pattern rather than a specific period of election motivated spending uses capital expenditures as our example of more politically visible budgetary items and a data set of 14 Indian states over 54 years (1959/60 – 2012/13). The results of the hypotheses that capital expenditures as a ratio of both total government expenditure and government consumption alone should rise across the entire governing interval are found to be consistent with this hypothesis and provide a fit with the data that is marginally better than more traditional models that use either all pre-election periods or only the pre-election year of scheduled elections to test for opportunism. The absence of a similar interval effect on aggregate state expenditures and on the net budgetary position suggests that evidence of political interaction with the budget is more likely to be found in its composition rather than in its overall level or in the size of its surplus or deficit. |
| Keywords: | Political business or budget cycle, the spending composition of Indian States, visibility of capital expenditures, panel data, ARDL modeling |
| JEL: | H5 H72 O53 C23 |
| Date: | 2016–09–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:16-14&r=cdm |
| By: | Vakhshtayn, Victor Semenovich (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)); Vàizer, Tatiàna (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)) |
| Abstract: | The object of the study are: communication in the public sphere as a form of establishing a political community and a way to build a culture of civic participation (participatory culture). Objective was to reconstruct the unfolding debate in Western studies of consensus and significant dissensuse as a method of forming a political community; to prepare a framework for further research in the field of modern Russian communication practices, which could become the basis for the formation of a political community. In the first part of the work presented conceptualization of the public sphere and public communication in the classical theory it shows how consensually-oriented communication can be the basis of a political community. The second part is devoted to criticism of the consensual model of public communication; It shows how consensus can be associated with the mechanisms of exclusion from the public sphere and the political community. The third part is devoted to the normative ideal of auditory democracy, which allows you to create a political community on the basis of significant dissensusa; It shows the extent to which modern Russian public sphere responds to this ideal. |
| Keywords: | communication, public sphere, political community |
| Date: | 2016–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:1668&r=cdm |
| By: | SUZUKI Satoko; TAKEMURA Kosuke |
| Abstract: | Past research has shown mixed results for the effect of diversity toward innovation. We hypothesize that leadership is a key in its success. In particular, we focus on the leader's universal-diverse orientation. Team diversity could lead to low social integration which affects team creativity; however, leaders with a high universal-diverse orientation ("universal-diverse" leaders) moderate this relationship between social integration and creativity. The conceptual model is assessed using survey data of 41 teams from mid- and large-sized Japanese companies. The results show that diversity is negatively associated with a group's social integration, and that social integration has a positive effect on creativity. The results also indicate that the universal-diverse leader mitigates the negative relationship between diversity and creativity through decreased social integration. This research contributes to diversity and group performance literature in two ways. First, it identifies a new moderator in the relationship between diversity and group performance. Second, it connects two research streams: diversity and group performance literature and leadership literature. The findings of the study also provide implications for policy makers and managers. Today, in Japan, diversity is considered as a key for economic growth. Thus, Japanese government is enforcing policies that support Japanese firms to diversify, and the latter are increasing their efforts to diversify. However, in order to obtain positive effects of diversity on firm performance, it is not enough simply to diversify their organizations. It is also important to have the universal-diverse leaders manage the diversified groups. Hence, it is important for the government and companies to also increase efforts in educating leaders. Leaders need to have universal-diverse orientation, and they need to be able to understand people's similarities and differences and effectively manage the diverse groups. |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:16086&r=cdm |