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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Chun-Fang Chiang (National Taiwan Univ); Semin Kim (Yonsei Univ); SunTak Kim (National Taiwan Univ); Chien-Hsun Lin (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara); Ming-Jen Lin (National Taiwan Univ) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment to investigate the elects of partisan news on the 2016 Taiwan Presidential and Legislative Elections. Sub- jects are divided into four groups: rightist (KMT), leftist (DPP), new third-party and control, and provided with distinct partisan news ar- ticles. To ensure readership of assigned newspapers, subjects join multiple experimental sessions in which they are asked to solve quiz questions about the news articles and rewarded according to their quiz scores. We measure the elects of partisan news by comparing the reported vote choices in the 2016 Elections with subjects' initial political preferences. We find that the leftist news articles have signif- icantly increased the support for the DPP candidate Tsai by reinforc- ing the existing preferences. The articles about the third-parties have changed subjects' voting intentions to support the new party GSD. We also find that the estimated baseline and reinforcement treatment elects are driven by undecided subjects or swing voters. |
| Keywords: | partisan news, media e ect, swing voter, persuasion rate, voting, election, field experiment |
| JEL: | D72 L82 C92 C93 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2019rwp-147&r=all |
| By: | Raúl Duarte; Frederico Finan; Horacio Larreguy; Laura Schechter |
| Abstract: | Throughout much of the developing world, politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes prior to elections. We investigate how social networks help facilitate vote-buying exchanges by combining village network data of brokers and voters with broker reports of vote buying. We show that networks diffuse politically-relevant information about voters to brokers who leverage it to target voters. In particular, we find that brokers target reciprocal voters who are not registered to their party and about whom they can hear more information through their social network. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying and ultimately for political outcomes. |
| JEL: | D72 O1 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26241&r=all |
| By: | Mariella Gonzales; Gianmarco León-Ciliotta; Luis R. Martínez |
| Abstract: | We combine two natural experiments, multiple empirical strategies and administrative data to study voters' response to marginal changes to the fine for electoral abstention in Peru. A smaller fine leads to a robust decrease in voter turnout. However, the drop in turnout caused by a full fine reduction is less than 20% the size of that caused by an exemption from compulsory voting, indicating the predominance of the non-monetary incentives provided by the mandate to vote. Additionally, almost 90% of the votes generated by a marginally larger fine are blank or invalid, lending support to the hypothesis of rational abstention. Higher demand for information and larger long-run effects following an adjustment to the value of the fine point to the existence of informational frictions that limit adaptation to institutional changes. |
| Keywords: | voter turnout, voter registration, compulsory voting, informational frictions, external validity, Peru |
| JEL: | D72 D78 D83 K42 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1111&r=all |
| By: | Sascha O. Becker; Erik Hornung |
| Abstract: | Did the Prussian three-class franchise, which politically over-represented the economic elite, affect policy-making? Combining MP-level political orientation, derived from all roll call votes in the Prussian parliament (1867–1903), with constituency characteristics, we analyze how local vote inequality, determined by tax payments, affected policymaking during Prussia’s period of rapid industrialization. Contrary to the predominant view that the franchise system produced a conservative parliament, higher vote inequality is associated with more liberal voting, especially in regions with large-scale industry. We argue that industrialists preferred self-serving liberal policies and were able to coordinate on suitable MPs when vote inequality was high. |
| Keywords: | inequality, political economy, three-class franchise, elites, Prussia |
| JEL: | D72 N43 N93 P26 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7801&r=all |
| By: | Tim Lohse; Sven A. Simon |
| Abstract: | In today’s business environment, team work is omnipresent. But might teams be more prone toward non-compliance with laws and regulations than single individuals despite imminent neg-ative consequences of uncovering misconduct? The recent prevalence of corporate delinquencies gives rise to this concern. In our laboratory experiment, we investigate the determinants of teams’ compliance behavior. In particular, we disentangle the effect of deciding jointly as a team of two from sharing the economic consequences among both team members. Our findings provide evidence that teams are substantially less compliant than individuals are. This drop in compliance is driven by the joint, rather than the individual, liability of team members. In contrast, whether subjects make their decisions alone or together does not influence the overall compliance rate. When coordinating their compliance decision teams predominately discuss the risk of getting caught in an audit, and team decision-making is characterized by behavioral spillovers between team members. Holding each team member fully liable is a promising means to deter them from going astray. |
| Keywords: | compliance, lying, team decision, shared liability, audit, communication, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | C92 D91 K42 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7807&r=all |
| By: | Antoinette Baujard (CREED and Tinbergen Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands); Muriel Gilardone (Normandie Université, Unicaen, CNRS, CREM UMR 6211, F-14000, France) |
| Abstract: | Our paper offers a novel reading of Sen’s idea of justice, beyond the standard prisms imposed by theories of justice – resting on external normative criteria – and formal welfarism – involving the definition of individual welfare and its aggregation. Instead we take seriously Sen’s emphasis on personal agency and focus on his original contribution to the issue of objectivity. Firstly, we demonstrate that Sen’s idea of justice, with at its core “positional views”, is more respectful of persons’ agency than would be a theory based on individual preference or capability. Secondly, we argue that Sen’s conception of objectivity considers that both information and sentiments are relative to a position. Such an alternative approach to subjectivity allows the formation of more impartial views through collective deliberation and a better consideration of justice by agents themselves. |
| Keywords: | Individual preferences, positional objectivity, sentiments, public reasoning, agency, justice |
| JEL: | A13 B31 B41 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1922&r=all |
| By: | Carattini, Stefano; Levin, Simon; Tavoni, Alessandro |
| Abstract: | Climate change is a global externality that has proven difficult to address through formal institutions alone, due to the public good properties of climate change mitigation and the lack of a supranational institution for enforcing global treaties. Given these circumstances, which are arguably the most challenging for international cooperation, commitment problems and free-riding incentives for countries to delay costly mitigation efforts are major obstacles to effective environmental agreements. Starting from this premise, we examine domestic mitigation efforts, with the goal of assessing the extent to which the willingness of individuals to contribute voluntarily to the public good of climate mitigation could be scaled up to the global level. Although individual environmental actions are clearly insufficient for achieving ambitious global mitigation targets, we argue that they are nevertheless initial and essential steps in the right direction. In fact, individual and community efforts may be particularly important if local interventions encourage shifts in norms and behaviors that favor large-scale transformations. With this in mind, we discuss the importance of the visibility of norms and the role of beliefs when such visibility is lacking, and their implications for leveraging cooperative behavior to increase climate mitigation efforts locally and globally. |
| Keywords: | social norms; collective action; pro-environmental behaviour; climate policy; conditional cooperation; ES/R009708/1 |
| JEL: | D70 F59 H23 M30 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2019–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100784&r=all |
| By: | Tristance Kee (Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | As the urban design discipline develops renewed interests in participatory design and collaborative place-making, it becomes critical to review the potential and limitations in current process to ensure a sustainable method for future development. This paper explores how collaborative design can be a key to future sustainable urban development. The process involves a multi-disciplinary collaboration and an innovative learning process by sharing ideas as well as careful consideration on social, economic and political circumstances among government and district stakeholders. This intrinsic proposition of innovative participatory planning implies interdisciplinary collaboration between professionals and local residents to integrate knowledge into new urban place-making thinking. Design innovation in contemporary society can manifest itself in the discourse sustainable urban development by application of bottom up planning and community driven design. This paper examines the emerging design pedagogy which promotes interdisciplinary coalition of professionals and local stakeholders in community development as an innovative design rubric to create a sustainable urban approach. Through two case studies in the Asian context, this paper reviews and critically evaluates the process of how the notion of sustainable development in contemporary urban planning theory is underpinned by the collaborative design practice. |
| Keywords: | Collaborative Design, Design Innovation, Sustainable Development, Urban Development |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:9011252&r=all |
| By: | Giuseppe Albanese (Bank of Italy); Guglielmo Barone (University of Padua); Guido de Blasio (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Economic roots of populism in Western countries are quite well understood but much less is known about policy implications. We study a large redistribution program that conveyed, within the EU cohesion framework, a relevant amount of money to some Italian municipalities. Our identification strategy is based on a spatial regression discontinuity design, which exploits the allocation rule of funds. We focus on the 2013 general elections and show that municipalities favored by redistribution exhibit a drop in populism of about 5% of the mean of the dependent variable. |
| Keywords: | populism, voting, redistribution |
| JEL: | D72 R58 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0239&r=all |
| By: | Yuval Heller (Bar Ilan University, Israel); Christoph Kuzmics (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | We define and characterize renegotiation-proof equilibria of coordination games with preplay communication in which players have private preferences over the feasible coordinated outcomes. These are such that players never miscoordinate, players coordinate on their jointly preferred outcome whenever there is one, and players communicate only the ordinal part of their preferences. This set of renegotiation proof equilibrium strategies does not depend on the distribution of private preferences, and is thus robust to changes in players’ beliefs. Moreover, these equilibria are interim Pareto efficient and evolutionarily stable. |
| Keywords: | Coordination games; Renegotiation-proof; Equilibrium entrants; Secret handshake; Incomplete information; Evolutionary robustness |
| JEL: | C72 C73 D82 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2019-10&r=all |