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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Dirk Engelmann (HU zu Berlin); Hans Peter Grüner (University of Mannheim); Timo Hoffmann; Alex Possajenikov (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Under simple majority voting an absolute majority of voters may choose policies that are harmful to minorities. It is the purpose of sub- and super-majority rules to protect legitimate minority interests. We study how voting rules are chosen under the veil of ignorance and whether there are systematic biases in these choices. In our experiment, individuals choose voting rules for given distributions of gains and losses that can arise from a policy, but before learning their own valuation of the policy. We find that subjects on average adjust the voting rule in line with the skewness of the distribution. As a result, a higher share of the achievable surplus can be extracted with the suggested rules than with exogenously given simple majority voting. While the rule choices are not significantly biased towards under- or overprotection of the minority, towards majority voting or towards status-quo preserving rules, they only imperfectly reflect the distributions of benefits and costs. In expectation this leads to only 63% of the surplus being extracted. The participants are heterogeneous with respect to how well their rule choices adapt to the distribution of valuations, with a large share of the surplus loss caused by a small group of participants. |
| Keywords: | minority protection; voting; experiments; |
| JEL: | D72 C91 |
| Date: | 2023–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:484&r=cdm |
| By: | Vincent Anesi; Peter Buisseret |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic model in which a group collectively bargains with an external party. At each date the group makes an offer to the external party (the ‘agent’) in exchange for a concession. Group members hold heterogeneous preferences over agreements and are uncertain about the agent’s resolve. We show that all group members favor more aggressive proposals than they would if they were negotiating alone. By eliciting more information about the agent’s resolve, these offers reduce the group members’ uncertainty about the agent’s preferences and therefore reduce the group’s internal conflicts over its negotiating strategy. To mitigate the consequent risk that negotiations fail, decisive group members successively give up their influence over proposals: starting from any initially democratic decision process, the group eventually consolidates its entire negotiation authority into the hands of a single member. |
| Keywords: | adverse selection, collective choice, political economy, dictatorship, bargaining |
| JEL: | D02 D71 D78 D82 L22 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10823&r=cdm |
| By: | von der Heyde, Leah (LMU Munich); Haensch, Anna-Carolina; Wenz, Alexander (University of Mannheim) |
| Abstract: | The recent development of large language models (LLMs) has spurred discussions about whether LLM-generated “synthetic samples” could complement or replace traditional surveys, considering their training data potentially reflects attitudes and behaviors prevalent in the population. A number of mostly US-based studies have prompted LLMs to mimic survey respondents, finding that the responses closely match the survey data. However, several contextual factors related to the relationship between the respective target population and LLM training data might affect the generalizability of such findings. In this study, we investigate the extent to which LLMs can estimate public opinion in Germany, using the example of vote choice as outcome of interest. To generate a synthetic sample of eligible voters in Germany, we create personas matching the individual characteristics of the 2017 German Longitudinal Election Study respondents. Prompting GPT-3 with each persona, we ask the LLM to predict each respondents’ vote choice in the 2017 German federal elections and compare these predictions to the survey-based estimates on the aggregate and subgroup levels. We find that GPT-3 does not predict citizens’ vote choice accurately, exhibiting a bias towards the Green and Left parties, and making better predictions for more “typical” voter subgroups. While the language model is able to capture broad-brush tendencies tied to partisanship, it tends to miss out on the multifaceted factors that sway individual voter choices. Furthermore, our results suggest that GPT-3 might not be reliable for estimating nuanced, subgroup-specific political attitudes. By examining the prediction of voting behavior using LLMs in a new context, our study contributes to the growing body of research about the conditions under which LLMs can be leveraged for studying public opinion. The findings point to disparities in opinion representation in LLMs and underscore the limitation of applying them for public opinion estimation without accounting for the biases in their training data. |
| Date: | 2023–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:8je9g&r=cdm |
| By: | Phoebe Koundouri; Georgios I. Papayiannis; Electra V. Petracou; Athanasios N. Yannacopoulos |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose a consensus group decision making scheme under model uncertainty consisting of an iterative two-stage procedure and based on the concept of Fr\'echet barycenter. Each step consists of two stages: the agents first update their position in the opinion metric space by a local barycenter characterized by the agents' immediate interactions and then a moderator makes a proposal in terms of a global barycenter, checking for consensus at each step. In cases of large heterogeneous groups the procedure can be complemented by an auxiliary initial homogenization step, consisting of a clustering procedure in opinion space, leading to large homogeneous groups for which the aforementioned procedure will be applied. The scheme is illustrated in examples motivated from environmental economics. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.00436&r=cdm |
| By: | Zerbini, Antoine |
| Abstract: | In response to voters’ demands to reduce interest groups’ influence over policy-making, many countries are passing or discussing transparency regulations on the activities of lobbyists. What is the impact of these laws? To study this question, I combine a lobbying model with a canonical model of political agency. I show that the need for lobbying transparency is rooted in the conflicting policy and electoral incentives of politicians rather than in the risk of undue influence by interest groups per se. Then, by making clearer the process through which a policy was implemented, lobbying transparency both helps voters control the influence of interest groups and better punish politicians who do not represent their best interests. I also show that politicians often have little incentives to implement lobbying transparency, potentially explaining why voters’ demand for it remains unanswered. |
| Date: | 2023–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:w6vam&r=cdm |
| By: | Aronsson, Thomas (Department of Economics, Umeå University); Hetschko, Clemens (University of Leeds and CESifo); Schöb, Ronnie (Freie Universität Berlin and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | This study shows that supporters of right-wing populist parties in Germany and the United Kingdom tend to be less patient than supporters of other parties and thus more prone to favor immediate gratification over long-term outcomes. Our empirical analysis highlights that a direct effect of impatience on the support for right-wing populism remains even after controlling for life outcomes, such as income and education. We present a theoretical model to rationalize this finding, where highly impatient individuals are subject to binding borrowing constraints and therefore unable to reallocate the benefits of forward-looking policies to the present. For this reason, they tend to support myopic policies promoted by populist parties that focus on immediate outcomes. Extending our empirical analysis shows that the direct effect of impatience on the likelihood of preferring a right-wing populist party may indeed be driven by voters who are borrowing-constrained. |
| Keywords: | Time-preference; impatience; right-wing populism; borrowing constraint |
| JEL: | D15 D72 D91 F15 F68 H53 |
| Date: | 2023–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:1019&r=cdm |
| By: | D. Mark Anderson; Kerwin Charles; Krzysztof Karbownik; Daniel I. Rees; Camila Steffens |
| Abstract: | The Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) of 1968 was focused on highlighting, and ultimately reducing, poverty in the United States. As part of the campaign, protestors from across the country were transported to Washington, D.C. in 6 separate bus caravans, each of which made stops en route to rest, recruit, and hold non-violent protests. Using data from 1960-1970, we estimate the effects of these protests on congressional election outcomes. In the South, we find that PPC protests led to reductions in Democratic vote share and turnout, while in the West they may have benefited Democratic candidates at the expense of their Republican rivals. |
| JEL: | D72 I30 J15 N32 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31973&r=cdm |
| By: | Edith Elkind; Svetlana Obratzsova; Nicholas Teh |
| Abstract: | Multiwinner voting captures a wide variety of settings, from parliamentary elections in democratic systems to product placement in online shopping platforms. There is a large body of work dealing with axiomatic characterizations, computational complexity, and algorithmic analysis of multiwinner voting rules. Although many challenges remain, significant progress has been made in showing existence of fair and representative outcomes as well as efficient algorithmic solutions for many commonly studied settings. However, much of this work focuses on single-shot elections, even though in numerous real-world settings elections are held periodically and repeatedly. Hence, it is imperative to extend the study of multiwinner voting to temporal settings. Recently, there have been several efforts to address this challenge. However, these works are difficult to compare, as they model multi-period voting in very different ways. We propose a unified framework for studying temporal fairness in this domain, drawing connections with various existing bodies of work, and consolidating them within a general framework. We also identify gaps in existing literature, outline multiple opportunities for future work, and put forward a vision for the future of multiwinner voting in temporal settings. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.04417&r=cdm |