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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Buser, Thomas (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | I analyze Dutch panel data that contains rich information on voting, political opinions, and personality traits. I show that "adversarial" preferences - competitiveness, negative reciprocity, distrust, and selfishness - are strong predictors of right-wing and populist political preferences. Their explanatory power is similar to that of a rich set of socioeconomic status indicators - including income, education and occupation - and robust to non-parametrically controlling for them. I replicate previously studied associations between classic personality traits and political preferences, and show that adversarial preferences predict voting independently from these traits - and often with larger effect sizes. The complex Dutch party landscape allows me to go further than simple left-right comparisons to differentiate parties along an economic left-right axis, a social progressive-conservative axis, and a populism axis. Competitiveness predicts voting for economically right-wing parties, whereas negative reciprocity, distrust, and selfishness are stronger predictors of voting for socially conservative and populist parties. |
| Keywords: | voting, political preferences, personality, competitiveness, reciprocity |
| JEL: | D72 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16711&r=cdm |
| By: | José J. Bercoff (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán Argentina); Osvaldo Meloni (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán Argentina); Juan Manuel Tabuenca (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella Argentina) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the political competition literature by providing empirical evidence of the influence of Double Simultaneous Voting System (DSVS) and Apparentment Lists (AL), in force in several Argentine districts since 1987, on party hegemony and the concentration of the party system. Results from a panel data of 9 gubernatorial elections and all 24 argentine subnational jurisdictions show that these electoral systems favor the persistence of the incumbent party in office, diminish the effective number of parties, and improve the probability of victory of the incumbent party. DSVS and AL generate a profusion of subgroups that take advantage of preexisting party fragmentation, clientelistic networks and large vertical fiscal imbalance |
| Keywords: | Political competition; electoral systems; subnational politics; Double simultaneous voting system; Apparentment lists. |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:302&r=cdm |
| By: | Carozzi, Felipe; Cipullo, Davide; Repetto, Luca |
| Abstract: | We study how partisan alignment across levels of government affects coalition formation and government stability using a regression discontinuity design and a large dataset of Spanish municipal elections. We document a positive effect of alignment on both government formation and stability. Alignment increases the probability that the most-voted party appoints the mayor and decreases the probability that the government is unseated during the term. Aligned parties also obtain sizeable electoral gains in the next elections. We show that these findings are not the consequence of favoritism in the allocation of transfers towards aligned governments. |
| Keywords: | government stability; government formation; political alignment; inter-governmental relations |
| JEL: | D72 H20 H77 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120574&r=cdm |
| By: | Blanc, Corin |
| Abstract: | Based on the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) of 2020, we are analyzing the relationship between political positioning, trust, and attitudes towards environmental policies. Our study reveals that voters of far-right parties in France, Europe, and the United States are less concerned about environmental issues compared to others. Their environmental concerns also differ in nature: they focus on local issues whose consequences directly affect their daily lives. Furthermore, these voters are generally opposed to any binding environmental policy, regardless of its nature. They also prefer punitive environmental policies over positive incentives for behavioral change, unlike centrist voters. We also confirm a previously known result: far-right voters express lower trust than others towards the rest of society and institutions in general. However, this distrust appears to hinder their adherence to environmentally friendly policies and attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Environnement, Vote, Wellbeing, far-right |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notobe:2315b&r=cdm |
| By: | Anton Bobrov (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco); Rupal Kamdar (Indiana University); Mauricio Ulate (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) |
| Abstract: | U.S. monetary-policy decisions are made by the 12 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Seven of these members, coming from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, inherently represent national-level interests. The remaining five members, a rotating group of presidents from the 12 Federal Reserve districts, come instead from sub-national jurisdictions. Does this structure have relevant implications for the monetary policy-making process? In this paper, we first build a panel dataset on economic activity across Fed districts. We then provide evidence that regional economic conditions influence the voting behavior of district presidents. Specifically, a regional unemployment rate that is one percentage point higher than the U.S. level is associated with an approximately nine percentage points higher probability of dissenting in favor of looser policy at the FOMC. This result is statistically significant, robust to different specifications, and indicates that the regional component in the structure of the FOMC could matter for monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy, FOMC, Regional Economic Conditions, Taylor Rule |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inu:caeprp:2024002&r=cdm |
| By: | Benjamin Monnery (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France); Alexandre Chirat (EconomiX (UMR 7235), UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, CNRS, 200 avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre cedex, France) |
| Abstract: | Western democracies experienced in recent decades a transformation of the relationship between citizens and their representatives towards greater accountability and transparency. These demands led to the emergence of new regulations and anti-corruption institutions. However, it often remains unknown whether such institutions are able to secure public trust and legitimacy in order to fulfill their mission effectively. The paper investigates this question by focusing on France, which quickly became a leader in the fight against corruption after the launch in 2013 of the High Authority for the Transparency in Public Life (HATVP). We run a survey experiment among 3, 000 citizens and 33 experts to collect their prior beliefs about political corruption, and then evaluate the impact of granting basic information on citizens’ perceptions about the effectiveness and legitimacy of the French anti-corruption agency. First, results show a large divide between the average citizen and the more optimistic experts about the dynamics of political integrity. Second, citizens have heterogeneous beliefs and those most distrustful are not only more likely to vote for populist candidates or abstain but are also the least informed about the anti-corruption agency. Third, the information provision experiment has meaningful and positive impacts on citizens’ perceptions of the HATVP, political transparency, and representative democracy. The beneficial effects are as large or even larger among the most distrustful and ill-informed citizens, and can close part of the gap with the assessments made by experts. |
| Keywords: | Political corruption; Political trust; Anti-corruption agency; Integrity; Populism; survey experiment |
| JEL: | C99 D72 M48 P37 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afd:wpaper:2402&r=cdm |