An index number framework for explaining changes in input productivity– an application to energy efficiency

Lott (2009) finds that nonvoted ballot rates for down-ballot races are greater than those for presidential races, and newer technologies that reduce nonvoted presidential ballots create even greater rates of nonvoting down-ballot than the same older voting technologies. The conclusion is momentous: adopting voting technologies that minimize under-voting in presidential races actually increases under-voting across all races on the same ballot. This study extends Lott's by examining the Congressional vote on the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA 2002), which established a program to provide funds to states in order to replace punch card voting systems with newer technologies. We focus on the racial component of Lott's finding, specifically that Hispanic-American voters exhibit greater rates of voter fatigue than do white voters. This study posits that, given the large Hispanic-American populations in California and Texas and their propensity to support Democrats in these states, House Democrats from these states would not view the HAVA 2002 as favourably as House Democrats from other parts of the US. Among other results presented here, the data show that support for HAVA 2002 among California and Texas House Democrats was 11.6 percentage points below that of House Democrats from the other 48 states.     

Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions

Consider a committee which must select one alternative from a set of three or more alternatives. Committee members each cast a ballot which the voting procedure counts. The voting procedure is strategy-proof if it always induces every committee member to cast a ballot revealing his preference. I prove three theorems. First, every strategy-proof voting procedure is dictatorial. Second, this paper's strategy-proofness condition for voting procedures corresponds to Arrow's rationality, independence of irrelevant alternatives, non-negative response, and citizens' sovereignty conditions for social welfare functions. Third, Arrow's general possibility theorem is proven in a new manner.     

Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections

We analyze the effect of electoral turnout on incumbency advantages by exploring mayoral elections in the German state of Bavaria. Mayors are elected by majority rule in two-round (runoff) elections. Between the first and second ballot of the mayoral election in March 2020, the state government announced an official state of emergency. In the second ballot, voting in person was prohibited and only postal voting was possible. To construct an instrument for electoral turnout, we use a difference-in-differences strategy by contrasting turnout in the first and second ballot in 2020 with the first and second ballots from previous elections. We use this instrument to analyze the causal effect of turnout on incumbent vote shares. A 10-percentage point increase in turnout leads to a statistically robust 3.4 percentage point higher vote share for incumbent mayors highlighting the relevance of turnout-related incumbency advantages.     

A few signatures matter: Barriers to entry in Italian local politics

Competition for public office is an essential feature of democracy but having many candidates competing for the same position might lead to voter confusion and be counterproductive. In current democracies, ballot access regulations limit citizens’ right to become candidates, seeking to balance this trade-off by discouraging frivolous contenders. This paper examines the causal effect of signature requirements – a widespread ballot access regulation – and finds that their impact goes beyond this goal. I use data on Italian local elections and apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to estimate the effects of these requirements on electoral competition, candidates’ selection, voter participation and administrative efficiency. I find that signature requirements reduce the number of candidates running for office, decrease electoral competition, lead to a more experienced pool of candidates, and reduce voter turnout. The positive effects of this policy are observed in municipalities with fragmented political systems, where signature requirements lead to fewer wasted votes and fewer spoiler candidates. The downside is observed in municipalities with concentrated political systems: signature requirements increase the frequency of uncontested races and reduce voter participation. Findings reveal how this barrier to entry impacts key dimensions of democracy and indicate that designing efficient electoral institutions requires a clear understanding of local political contexts.     

Overstrained citizens? The number of ballot propositions and the quality of the decision process in direct democracy

We study how the number of ballot propositions affects the quality of decision making in direct democracy, as reflected in citizens’ knowledge, voting behavior, and attitudes toward democracy. Using three comprehensive data sets from Switzerland with over 3,500 propositions, we exploit variation in the number of federal and cantonal propositions. Voters know the most about the content of federal propositions when they are exclusively presented and less with a high number of concurrent cantonal propositions on the ballot. Across other outcomes we find no consistent indications that – for the observed variation in the exposure to popular votes – a high number of propositions impedes the quality of decision making in Swiss federal direct democracy. In the medium to longer term, more federal propositions on the ballot rather relate to higher perceived political influence and satisfaction with democracy.     

Trade Policy Platforms of Competing Parties: What Makes Them Different?

Theoretical voting models predict convergence of two parties' trade policy platforms. In contrast, real-world observations reveal substantial differences in the platforms of competing parties. This paper modifies the standard probabilistic voting model in a way that allows for divergence of policy platforms. Two parties are shown to adopt different policy platforms if the impact of trade policy choices on expected election outcomes depends on the specific identity of the policy-promising party; that is, if the chance to win depends not only on what trade policy is promised but also on which party does the promising.     

Sophisticated voting with information for two voting functions

The necessary and sufficient conditions for a single rational voter to reveal a sophisticated preference ordering under the Borda and Kemeny voting functions are presented. Algorithms for determining the dominant strategic ballot are given for a key voter having perfect information regarding the true preference orderings of the other voters. An example illustrating the stated concepts is provided.     

Voter turnout and government's legitimate mandate

The paper studies a group-mobilization model of costly voting in which citizens care about the legitimate mandate of the government formed by the winning group. This, as a function of the electorate's voting behavior, depends on both the margin of victory and the total turnout rate. Citizens prefer a high mandate when their own group forms the government but a low one if the government is formed by an opposing group. As such, the eventual losing group faces a trade-off: a higher participation from its members decreases the margin of victory but increases the total turnout. In equilibrium, a second fundamental trade-off arises, which overturns the supposed positive relationship between turnout and mandate: as the total turnout becomes more important for the government's mandate, the first decreases but the second strengthens. The key mechanism at play is a shift in the relative participation of the two groups, which favors the majority and raises its margin of victory, thus yielding a bandwagon effect. The implications for the evolution of turnout and the occurrence of election boycotts are discussed.     

Income inequality and economic growth in an open economy

Income inequality has a strong impact on fiscal policy when majority voting enables those individuals with less-than-average income to decide on tax rates. This study analyzes the impact on economic growth of income inequality in an open economy where tax revenues are partially used for international transfers. In any case, income inequality is harmful for growth. In an economic union, positive effects of international integration raise the growth rate as long as net transfers do not grow proportionally. In a political union, unionwide voting makes distributive politics depending on the union's median voter. In this case, additional output growth on aggregate level is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a majority of voters to accept union membership.     

PROXIMITY AND VOTING FOR PROFESSIONAL SPORTING STADIUMS: THE PATTERN OF SUPPORT FOR THE SEAHAWK STADIUM REFERENDUM

This paper evaluates voting behavior on the Seahawk Stadium referendum in the State of Washington. For our empirical strategy, we implement both the linear probability model and a group logit model, which gives greater weight to voting areas with greater number of votes cast. We find that voting support was lowest among those living closest to the proposed stadium site, while voting support was highest among those within “easy access” of the stadium. This nonlinear distance effect differs from the typical “proximity” effect found in most professional sporting stadiums in the United States; however, it is consistent with a referendum‐voting outcome for a professional soccer stadium in Germany and public projects such as national forests. (JEL R53, H71, L83)     

Considering Collective Choice: The Route 328 Problem in Kodaira City

A local referendum was held in Kodaira City, Tokyo on 26 May 2013, but the voting box remained sealed. This was because the voter turnout did not reach the 50% threshold for opening the box. Based on the Rousseauian view on voting, we argue that this hurdle is unjustifiable and further question the adequacy of the local referendum even without such a hurdle. Finally, we examine the use of economic mechanisms for this type of collective choice instead of voting.     

Compulsory versus voluntary voting: An experimental study

We report on an experiment comparing compulsory and voluntary voting institutions in a voting game with common preferences. Rational choice theory predicts sharp differences in voter behavior between these two institutions. If voting is compulsory, then voters may find it rational to vote insincerely, i.e., against their private information. If voting is voluntary so that abstention is allowed, then sincere voting in accordance with a voter's private information is always rational while participation may become strategic. We find strong support for these theoretical predictions in our experimental data. Moreover, voters adapt their decisions to the voting institution in place in such a way as to make the group decision accuracy differences between the two voting institutions negligible. The latter finding may serve to rationalize the co-existence of compulsory and voluntary voting institutions in nature.     

Employment shocks and anti-EU sentiment

Euroscepticism and the rise of populist parties have often been linked to economic insecurity. This paper identifies regional employment changes as causal factors for forming attitudes towards the European Union and voting for eurosceptic parties in European Parliament elections. To do so, I combine industry-specific employment data for roughly 260 European NUTS II regions with individual-level Eurobarometer survey data for the past 20 years and regional voting results. I apply panel data and instrumental variable methods; for the latter I construct a Bartik-style instrument, which predicts employment changes on the basis of regional industry specialization and Europe-wide sector specific employment growth rates. The effect of employment changes on attitudes towards the EU is particularly strong for unemployed and low-skilled workers in regions with a high share of migrants from other European member states, which supports the narrative that ‘losers of globalization’ tend to be more skeptical towards economic and political integration.     

Conservative Politicians and Voting on Same‐sex Marriage

We examine whether conservative politicians are less likely to support same‐sex marriage when they run for office in safe rather than in contested districts using new data based on a roll‐call vote in the national German parliament. The results show that the margin of the majority for the incumbent in the previous election was a strong predictor for supporting same‐sex marriage. When the majority increased by a 1 percentage point, the likelihood of voting in favour of same‐sex marriage decreased by around 1.3 percentage points. We conjecture that politicians are election‐motivated – even when submitting roll‐call votes on a matter of conscience.     

The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians

We try to demonstrate how economists may engage in research on comparative politics, relating the size and composition of government spending to the political system. A Downsian model of electoral competition and forward-looking voting indicates that majoritarian – as opposed to proportional – elections increase competition between parties by focusing it into some key marginal districts. This leads to less public goods, less rents for politicians, more redistribution and larger government. A model of legislative bargaining and backward-looking voting indicates that presidential – as opposed to parliamentary – regimes increase competition between both politicians and voters. This leads to less public goods, less rents for politicians, less redistribution, and smaller government. We confront these predictions with cross-country data from around 1990, controlling for economic and social determinants of government spending. We find strong and robust support for the prediction that the size of government is smaller under presidential regimes, and weaker support for the prediction that majoritarian elections are associated with less public goods.     

Voting on public goods in multi-jurisdictional systems

This paper studies an economy with multiple jurisdictions, each producing a (pure) public good. Decisions are taken by means of a centralized voting procedure, to which individual agents participate and whose rules are defined with respect to the jurisdictional structure. In particular, a winning alternative must gain the support of a given number of jurisdictions. A well-known example is qualified majority rules. We establish condition on voting rules for the set of voting equilibria to coincide with the set of ratio equilibria of the economy, under alternative assumptions on the possibility of transfers across jurisdictions. We employ the obtained results to characterize the equilibria of two-stage voting situations, in which jurisdictional delegates vote instructed by internal committees.     

The effect of randomized school admissions on voter participation

There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant impact on overall voting behavior; however, among white families, those with above median income and prior voting history, lottery losers were significantly more likely to vote than lottery winners. Using propensity score methods, we compare the voting of lottery participants to similar families who did not participate in the lottery. We find that losing the school choice lottery caused an increase in voter turnout among whites, while winning the lottery had no effect relative to non-participants. Overall, our empirical results lend support to models of expressive and retrospective voting, where likely voters are motivated to vote by past negative policy outcomes.     

A swing state theory of trade protection in the Electoral College

This paper analyzes trade policy determination in the Electoral College in the presence of swing voters. It determines the circumstances under which incumbent politicians have an incentive to build a reputation for protectionism, thus swaying voting decisions and improving their re‐election probability. Strategic trade protection is shown to be more likely when protectionist swing voters have a lead over free trade supporters in states with relatively strong electoral competition and in states representing a larger proportion of Electoral College votes. An empirical test using a measure of industrial concentration in swing and decisive U.S. states lends support to the theoretical findings.     

公司治理投票机制优化设计初探

借鉴一般性政治投票机制,并结合公司治理目的及其利益主体特性,提出两种改进公司治理投票机制的方案——可转移的累积投票和贮存式投票,并对这两种改进方案的积极意义进行评估和分析。最后,对公司治理投票机制优化设计的后续研究问题进行了展望。