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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Tangian, Andranik S. |
| Abstract: | The voting method described in [Tangian 2017b] has been experimentally approbated during the 2016 election to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Student Parliament [Tangian 2017c]. Under this election method, the voters cast no votes but are asked about their preferences on the policy issues which are declared in the party manifestos (like in voting advice applications, e.g. German Wahl-O-Mat). Then the degree to which the parties match with the electorate's policy profile is expressed by the parties' indices of popularity (the average percentage of the voters represented on all the issues) and universality (frequency in representing a majority), and the parliament seats are distributed among the parties in proportion to their indices. This way it is hoped to bridge direct and representative democracies and to make the latter 'more representative' and, respectively, 'more democratic'. The voters are no longer swayed by politicians' charisma and communication skills but are directed to subject matters behind personal images, ideological symbols and populist declarations. It is supposed that a method that focuses on properties of decisions proposed (e.g., political and economic implications of Brexit) can make vote more profound and responsible. Indeed, the 2016 experiment proved that the method can increase the parliament's representativeness. At the same time, it revealed that the critical point is the selection of questions by the electoral committee: they can be favorable for one party and unfavorable for another, or they can poorly discriminate between the parties, finally causing an equalization of sizes of the party factions in the parliament (regarded by some as the method's malfunction). In the given paper, we describe a similar experiment during the election to the KIT Student Parliament in July 2017, where the problems mentioned are tackled. The parties are asked to formulate the questions themselves and to answer all of them, including the questions by other parties. The collected 94 questions are then reduced to 25 using an optimization model aimed at contrasting as much as possible between the parties by maximizing the total distance between the vectors which characterize their policy profiles. The 2017 experiment confirms that the alternative election method significantly increases the parliament representativeness while avoiding the accusation of partiality in the question selection. However, the equalization of parliament factions is still persisting. Analyzing this effect, we find that the student parties' positions are insufficiently diverse to reflect voters' policy preferences, meaning that the student parties fail to consistently represent electorate groups, representing different sets of voters on each issue. In mathematical terms, the question selection based on maximizing the distance between the party vectors reduces their space location almost to a two-dimensional plane, which is inadequate to represent the multi-dimensional space of voters' policy profiles. To surmount this effect it is suggested to replace the actual question selection criterion by the one which enhances the multi-dimensional space location of the party policy profiles. |
| Keywords: | policy representation,representative democracy,direct democracy,elections,coalitions,theory of voting |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:106&r=cdm |
| By: | Danilo P. Souza; Marcos Y. Nakaguma |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the determinants of negative advertising between candidates in electoral races ruled by majority vote, and also the effects of this type of advertising in the voter’s behavior. We evaluate, for example, how the number of candidates and how electoral rules (single-ballot versus runoff election) affects the negativity level of campaigns. We use data from Brazil’s Judiciary system for 2012 mayors election, which allows us to assess how these determinants affect differently the decision of going negative when attacker-attacked candidates were 1st-2nd or 2nd-3rd, for example, in the final vote share. |
| Keywords: | elections; negative advertising; political advertising |
| JEL: | D72 D79 C29 |
| Date: | 2017–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon25&r=cdm |
| By: | Tangian, Andranik S. |
| Abstract: | The paper estimates the policy representation of 34 German parties that participate in the 2017 Bundestag (federal) election. For this purpose, the party positions on 31 topical issues are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then we construct the party indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority). We find that the currently governing conservative union CDU/CSU and the social-democratic SPD are ranked only 27th and 22nd, respectively, being least representative among the four parties in the 2013 Bundestag. The most representative Bundestag faction is the GRÜNE - the smallest one. The current Bundestag representativeness is about 50%, as if the correspondence with the electorate's preference on every policy issue is being decided by tossing a coin, meaning that the 2013 Bundestag is practically unrelated to public opinion. |
| Keywords: | policy representation,representative democracy,direct democracy,elections,coalitions |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:107&r=cdm |
| By: | Enrico Spolaore; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present a conceptual framework linking cultural heterogeneity to inter-group conflict. When conflict is about control of public goods, more heterogeneous groups are expected to fight more with each other. In contrast, when conflict is about rival goods, more similar groups are more likely to engage in war with each other. We formalize these ideas within an analytical model and discuss recent empirical studies that are consistent with the model's implications. |
| Keywords: | rival goods, public goods, war, conflict, heterogeneity, cultural distance |
| JEL: | D74 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6258&r=cdm |
| By: | Aidt, T.; Leon, G.; Satchell, M. |
| Abstract: | Social unrest often erupts suddenly and diffuses quickly. What drives people to overcome their collective action problem and join a riot or protest, turning what is initially a small event into a widespread movement? We address this question by examining the Swing riots of 1830-31. The communication constraints of the time induced spatio-temporal variation in exposure to news about the uprising, allowing us to estimate the role of contagion in the spread of the riots. We find that local (rather than national) sources of information were central in driving contagion, and that this contagion magnified the impact that social and economic fundamentals had on riots by a factor of 2.65. Our historical data allow us to overcome a number of econometric challenges, but the Swing riots are of independent interest as well: they contributed to the passage of the Great Reform Act, a key step in Britain's institutional development. |
| Keywords: | Riots, diffusion, conflict, contagion, Captain Swing. |
| JEL: | D72 D74 O16 |
| Date: | 2017–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1751&r=cdm |
| By: | Inés Macho-Stadler; David Pérez-Castrillo; David Wettstein |
| Abstract: | Shapley (1953a) formulates his proposal of a value for cooperative games with transferable utility in characteristic function form, that is, for games where the re- sources every group of players has available to distribute among its members only depend on the members of the group. However, the worth of a coalition of agents often depends on the organization of the rest of the players. The existence of exter- nalities is one of the key ingredients in most interesting economic, social, or political environments. Thrall and Lucas (1963) provide the first formal description of set- tings with externalities by introducing the games in partition function form. In this chapter, we present the extensions of the Shapley value to this larger set of games. The different approaches that lead to the Shapley value in characteristic function form games (axiomatic, marginalistic, potential, dividends, non-cooperative) provide alternative routes for addressing the question of the most suitable extension of the Shapley value for the set of games in partition function form. |
| Keywords: | shapley value, Externalities |
| JEL: | C71 D62 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1002&r=cdm |
| By: | Maurer, Stephan E. |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether the German National Socialists used economic policies to reward their voters after coming to power in 1933. Using newly-collected data on public employment from the German censuses in 1925, 1933, and 1939 and addressing the potential endogeneity of the NSDAP vote share in 1933 by way of an instrumental variables strategy based on a similar party in Imperial Germany, I find that cities with higher NSDAP vote shares experienced a relative increase in public employment: for every additional percentage point in the vote share, the number of public employment jobs increased by around 2.5 percent. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–07–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83589&r=cdm |
| By: | Yaroslav Rosokha; Julian Romero |
| Abstract: | We study the evolution of cooperation in the inde nitely repeated prisoner's dilemma when it is costly for players to adjust their strategy. Our experimental interface allows subjects to design a comprehensive strategy that then selects ac- tions for them in every period. We conduct lab experiments in which subjects can adjust their strategies during a repeated game but may incur a cost for doing so. We nd three main results. First, subjects learn to cooperate more when adjustments are costless than when they are costly. Second, subjects make more adjustments to their strategies when adjustments are costless, but they still make adjustments even when they are costly. Finally, we nd that cooperative strategies emerge over time when adjustments are costless but not when adjustments are costly. These results highlight that within-game experimentation and learning are critical to the rise of cooperative behavior. We provide simulations based on an evolutionary algorithm to support these results. |
| Keywords: | Inde nitely Repeated Games, Prisoner's Dilemma, Experiments, Co- operation, Strategies |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pur:prukra:1300&r=cdm |
| By: | Hijzen, Alexander (OECD); Martins, Pedro S. (Queen Mary, University of London); Parlevliet, Jante (De Nederlandsche Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of sector-level bargaining systems and their role for labour market performance. We compare two countries with seemingly similar collective bargaining systems, the Netherlands and Portugal, and document a number of features that may affect labour market outcomes, including: i) the scope for flexibility at the firm or worker level within sector-level agreements; ii) the emphasis on representativeness as a criterion for extensions; iii) the effectiveness of coordination across bargaining units; and iv) pro-active government policies to enhance trust and cooperation between the social partners. |
| Keywords: | industrial relations, social dialogue, employment |
| JEL: | J5 P52 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11113&r=cdm |
| By: | McKenzie, Lisa |
| Abstract: | Media commentary has characterized the working class ‘leave’ voters in the UK’s EU referendum in terms of anger, apathy and frustration. There have been very few genuine attempts to document and interpret the meaning of the ‘leave’ vote among underprivileged voters who seemed to have voted for an outcome that harms their own interests. This article explores accounts and narratives from working class ‘leave’ voters through an ethnographic study of the political and social viewpoints of working class communities of East London and of ex-mining towns of Nottinghamshire. The article puts into fuller context the anger and apathy of being ‘left out’, arguing that being ‘left out’ has been part of working class political narratives for over 30 years. Going beyond frustration and apathy, a significant part of the narrative of working people was of ‘not existing’, suggesting certain important linkages with ongoing debates about new ways of conceptualizing class differences and class structures. The article shows how macro-stage political events such as a referendum about Europe can often be usefully illuminated by taking seriously the micro experiences on the ground. |
| Keywords: | working class; Brexit; ethnography; inequality |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:83290&r=cdm |