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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Demeze, Herman; Moyouwou, Issofa; Pongou, Roland |
| Abstract: | The fact that voters can manipulate election outcomes by misrepresenting their true preferences over competing political parties or candidates is commonly viewed as a major flaw of democratic voting systems. It is argued that insincere voting typically leads to suboptimal voting outcomes. However, it is also understood that insincere voting is rational behavior as it may result in the election of a candidate preferred by the voter to the candidate who would otherwise be selected. The relative magnitude of the welfare gains and losses of those who benefit from and those adversely affected by insincere voting behavior is consequently an important empirical issue. We address this question by providing exact asymptotic bounds on the welfare effects, in equilibrium, of insincere voting for an infinite class of democratic rules. We find, for instance, that preference manipulation benefits one-half to two-thirds of the population in three-candidate elections held under first-past-the-post, and one-third to one-hundred percent of the population in antiplurality elections. These bounds differ from those obtained under out-of-equilibrium manipulation. Our partial identification analysis provides a novel approach to evaluating mechanisms as a function of attitude towards risk, and it has practical implications for the choice of election rules by a mechanism designer facing a worst-case or a best-case objective. It also provides a new answer to the longstanding question of why certain rules, such as first-past-the-post, are more common in practice. |
| Keywords: | Democracy, tactical voting, political equilibrium, social welfare, mechanism design, worst-case-scenario, best-case-scenario, partial identification |
| JEL: | D60 D72 D81 H41 P4 P48 |
| Date: | 2016–04–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70607&r=pol |
| By: | Raúl A. Ponce-Rodríguez; Charles R. Hankla; Jorge Martinez-Vazquez; Eunice Heredia-Ortiz |
| Abstract: | In this article, we investigate how differences in the political institutions necessary for implementing decentralization reform may affect the efficiency and welfare properties of decentralization itself. We incorporate insights from political science and economics into a rigorous and formal extension of the influential “decentralization theorem” first developed by Oates in 1972. In our analysis, we go beyond Oates by producing a strong decentralization theorem that identifies the political conditions under which democratic decentralization dominates centralization even in the presence of interjurisdictional spillovers. More specifically, we find that beneficial outcomes for public service delivery will obtain when democratic decentralization (i.e. the creation of popularly elected sub-national governments) is combined with party centralization (i.e. the power of national party leaders to nominate candidates for sub-national office). We also find that the participation rules of primaries, whether closed or open, have important implications for the expected gains from decentralization. Most notably, we find that, when primaries are closed, even Oates’ conventional decentralization theorem does not hold. In summary, our theory shows that political institutions matter considerably in determining the welfare gains of decentralization outcomes. |
| Keywords: | federalism, institutions, decentralization. |
| JEL: | D61 D72 D78 H73 H75 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:1604&r=pol |
| By: | Özlem Becerik YoldaÅŸ (Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University); Yunus YoldaÅŸ (Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University) |
| Abstract: | A coalition refers to an alliance of two or more political parties to form a government and to perceive common interests for a continuance of a parliamentary term. In general, if no political party achieved an absolute majority of mandates in general elections, a coalition government will be formed. In West European parliamentary systems, coalitions are unavoidable. With a view to political systems in Europe, coalition cabinets are common, such as in Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1923, Turkey is also characterized by coalition governments which were unstable and negative assessed by the media and public at large. In particular, at times of political unrest and economic crises including the military coup in 1960,1970 and 1980, fifteen coalition governments in the Turkish parliamentary system.have been formed. Against this background, the main focus of the paper will be on the lifespan and stability of coalition governments in Turkey. The paper then investigates the main reasons for the resolution of coalition governments and their impacts on political culture in Turkey. |
| Keywords: | Turkey, coalition governments, polititcal culture |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:3505616&r=pol |
| By: | Andreas Steinmayr |
| Abstract: | An important concern about the surge in the number of refugees arriving in Europe is increased support for far-right, nationalist, anti-immigration parties. This paper studies a natural experiment in an Austrian federal state to identify the causal effect of exposure to refugees in the neighborhood on the support for the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). In the Upper Austria state election in September 2015 the FPÖ doubled its vote share with a fierce anti-asylum campaign. Since only 42 percent of Upper Austrian communities hosted refugees at the time of the election, direct exposure to refugees varied at the local level. To account for the potential endogeneity in the distribution of refugees, I use pre-existing group accommodations as instrumental variable. To cope with the sudden inflow of large numbers of refugees, these buildings were used for refugee accommodation and thus strongly increase the probability of refugee presence in the community. In line with the contact hypothesis I find that hosting refugees in the community dampens the positive overall trend and decreases FPÖ support by 4.42 percentage points in state elections. Further analysis using exit poll data reveals a positive effect on the optimism in the population that the integration of refugees can be managed. Placebo tests show that there were no effects in elections prior to 2015. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, refugees, political economy, voting |
| Date: | 2016–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2016:i:514&r=pol |
| By: | Tuccio, Michele (University of Southampton); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton); Hamdouch, Bachir (University Mohammed V - Agdal Rabat) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the impact of international migration on the transfer of political and social norms. Exploiting recent and unique data on Morocco, it explores whether households with return and current migrants bear different political preferences and behaviours than non-migrant families. Once controlling for the double selection into emigration and return migration, findings suggest that having a returnee in the household increases the demand for political and social change, driven by returnees mostly from Western European countries, who have been exposed to more democratic norms at destination. However, we find a negative impact of having a current migrant on the willingness to change of the left-behind household, driven by migrants to non-West countries, where the quality of political and social institutions are lower. Our results are robust to also controlling for destination selectivity. Finally, findings suggest that migration not only affect political attitudes but also actual behaviour: regions with higher returnee shares have had greater participation rates in the 2011 political elections. |
| Keywords: | international migration, political change, transfer of norms, Morocco |
| JEL: | D72 F22 O15 O55 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9794&r=pol |
| By: | Fiorini, Matteo; Lebrand, Mathilde |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of liberalization commitments in the context of trade in services used as intermediate inputs. Compared to goods, services inputs are mostly complementary to other factors of production and non-tradable. We build a theoretical trade policy framework in which (i) foreign investment as a way to contest a market for non-tradable services can be restricted by the government and (ii) the role of services as complementary inputs explains unilateral commitment to services trade liberalization. Commitment helps governments to avoid political pressures that would result in protectionist measures leading downstream producers to inefficiently reduce their production. In addition we provide new results on the influence of lobbying by both national firms and foreign multinationals. We discuss how the bargaining power of the government, the size of national services sectors and the difference in valuation between national and foreign contributions affect the willingness of the government to sign a services trade agreement. |
| Keywords: | Services Trade, Trade Agreements, FDI, Lobby |
| JEL: | D43 F13 F21 L80 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2016/05&r=pol |
| By: | Uslaner, Eric; yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | We show how disasters influence subjective political trust by testing the effect of the 2011 Great East Japan. For this test, we used the individual level data of 7 Asian covering the period before and after the disaster. The key findings are: the disaster lead to sharp drops in trust of the national government, trust in the Prime Minister, trust in political parties, and trust in the parliament. However, we do not find a loss of support in local governments. |
| Keywords: | Political trust; Natural disaster; Nuclear accident |
| JEL: | H84 J28 Q54 |
| Date: | 2016–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70527&r=pol |
| By: | Raul A. Ponce-Rodriguez (Department of Economics, Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez); Charles R. Hankla (Department of Political Science, Georgia State University); Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (International Center for Public Policy. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/index.html); Eunice Heredia-Ortiz (Developemtn Alternatives Inc., DAI) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we investigate how differences in the political institutions necessary for implementing decentralization reform may affect the efficiency and welfare properties of decentralization itself. We incorporate insights from political science and economics into a rigorous and formal extension of the influential “decentralization theorem” first developed by Oates in 1972. In our analysis, we go beyond Oates by producing a strong decentralization theorem that identifies the political conditions under which democratic decentralization dominates centralization even in the presence of interjurisdictional spillovers. More specifically, we find that beneficial outcomes for public service delivery will obtain when democratic decentralization (i.e. the creation of popularly elected sub-national governments) is combined with party centralization (i.e. the power of national party leaders to nominate candidates for sub-national office). We also find that the participation rules of primaries, whether closed or open, have important implications for the expected gains from decentralization. Most notably, we find that, when primaries are closed, even Oates’ convhaentional decentralization theorem does not hold. In summary, our theory shows that political institutions matter considerably in determining the welfare gains of decentralization outcomes. |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1603&r=pol |
| By: | Martin Paldam (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark); Erich Gundlach (Universität Hamburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | The Democratic Transition is the process of regime change from authoritarian at the traditional level of development to democratic at the modern level. This process is analyzed on 7,565 pairs of income and political regime data. Regimes are normally in local status quo equilibrium, so they have stepwise stability. The 158 countries are divided in two groups: A small OPEC group, where the transition is skew, and a Main group, where the data show the well-defined long-run path of the Democratic Transition. The distance to the transition path is termed the tension of the regime. The short-run changes are due to triggering events that cause regime jumps. Triggering events are almost random, while most jumps are in the direction of the tension. This mechanism integrates the short and the long run to give the transition. |
| Keywords: | Transition path, triggering events, regime jumps |
| JEL: | O11 O43 |
| Date: | 2016–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2016-05&r=pol |
| By: | Thomas Lacroix (Oxford University) |
| Keywords: | remittances |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cmgdev:15-01b&r=pol |
| By: | Nisigandha Bhuyan (Indian Institute of Management Calcutta) |
| Abstract: | The economic system of capitalism thrives on two things: individuals’ freedom and private property rights. However, individual freedom as it has come to be understood by modern political and economic institutions is only limited to individual choice. If individual choice, in the name of freedom, is so promoted then social justice remains to be a highly distant idea. Social justice can be possible if only choice is morally reasoned and importance is given to what is chosen rather than self-gratifying individual choice. In other words, do economic and political systems allow room for philosophical deliberations, beyond ornamental, instinctive and/or idiosyncratic discussions. |
| Keywords: | ethics; capitalism; social justice; moral reasoning; individual freedom |
| JEL: | P16 A13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:3505742&r=pol |
| By: | Martinsson, Peter (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Persson, Emil (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of institutional formation on the implementation of a binding minimum contribution level in a linear public goods game. Groups either face the minimum level exogenously imposed by a central authority or are allowed to decide for themselves by means of a group vote whether or not a minimum level should be implemented. We find a binding minimum contribution level to have a positive and substantially significant effect on cooperation. The main impact is on the extensive margin, meaning that it is possible to force free riders to increase their contribution without crowding out others’ voluntary contributions. This result is robust to the mode of implementation and thus when the minimum level is enforceable, it is a simple policy that will increase provision of the public good. |
| Keywords: | Public goods; Minimum level; Voting; Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D72 H41 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0655&r=pol |