Battleground states and voter participation in US presidential elections: an empirical test

The winner-take-all method of allocating Electoral College votes (in 48 of the 50 states) in US presidential elections has promoted interesting behaviours by politicians and states that are evident throughout US (economic) history. This analysis explores the impact that being a ‘battleground state’ in presidential elections has on future voter participation rates. After quantifying the degree to which each state is a battleground state, the empirical analysis proffers what it refers to as the ‘battleground voting hypothesis’, which argues that the greater the degree to which a given state is a battleground state, the greater the expected benefits from voting in that state and hence the greater the voter turnout in that state. The empirical results suggest that the top-to-bottom ‘battleground state effect’ generated an average of 7.8 additional percentage points in voter participation in presidential elections over the period 1964–2008 for those states at the top of the scale.     

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。     

Mixed equilibria in runoff elections

We demonstrate that the Hotelling–Downs model with runoff voting always admits symmetric mixed strategy equilibria for any (even or odd) number of office-motivated candidates (provided they are at least four). In specific, (a) we show that the game does not admit any symmetric atomless equilibrium, (b) we fully characterize a class of symmetric atomic mixed equilibria which exist for any distribution of the voters' ideal policies and (c) we argue that these equilibria are more robust than pure strategy equilibria to introduction of uncertainty about the voters' preferences.     

A quantitative analysis of Turkish Private Education Reform

A recent education policy Turkish government is wishing to undertake is to shut down all private supplementary education centers (SECs) unless SECs manage to convert into a private school. With this policy, the government is willing to increase equality of opportunity among students. We show quantitatively that the policy, in fact, leads to a decrease in equality of opportunity since SECs are given the option to convert into private schools. We use a political economy model of education at which households, heterogeneous with respect to exogenously set income, choose among a continuum of private schools differentiated by tuition and a public school. Households choosing the public school can privately supplement their child's education spending in any amount. Public school is free of charge, and its spending is financed by income tax revenue collected from all households. Income tax rate is determined by majority voting. Achievement of a child depends only on educational spending. We calibrate the model's parameters by matching certain targets from 2013 Turkish data. We then exogenously restrict the supplemental education spending to zero in a counterfactual experiment. We find that variance of achievement (or inequality of opportunity) increases by 23.51% and mean achievement decreases by 1.74%.     

The wisdom of demagogues: institutions,corruption and support for authoritarian populists

This article analyses the drivers of support for authoritarian populist parties in Europe. Such parties claim to represent the interests of ordinary people against greedy and out‐of‐touch elites. Simultaneously, they reject conventional constraints on democratic policymaking. In recent years, such parties on the political left and right have been gaining influence in countries across Europe. Using a panel data set from 1980–2016, we use semiparametric Tobit models with country fixed effects to explain support for authoritarian populists. We find that large vote shares of right‐wing – but not left‐wing – authoritarian populists are associated closely to corruption. Other commonly cited explanations such as unemployment, inequality and immigration perform poorly in predicting support for populist political platforms on the political right. While a full theoretical explanation of the link between corruption and right‐wing populism remains beyond the scope of this article, we suggest that the mechanism involves political trust. Corruption weakens trust in political institutions, which populists exploit. Curbing the rise of right‐wing authoritarian populism in Europe will thus require restoring trust in the integrity of politics.     

WHO VOTES EXPRESSIVELY,AND WHY? EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE

Experiments have shown that some people behave more altruistically in collective decisions than they do in individual ones, which could be interpreted as an ‘expressive voting’ effect. However, there is substantial variation in the behaviour of experimental participants. We conduct experiments to explore the reasons for this variation, and find that certain characteristics are sometimes associated with a propensity for expressive voting. However, the strength of these effects depends on the ordering of individual and collective choices. The ‘warm glow’ of expressive voting can influence subsequent individual decisions, and the ‘cold shower’ of individual selfishness can influence subsequent collective decisions.     

Young Adults and Politics: Investigating Factors Influencing Voter Decision Making

Many parallels have been drawn between politics and marketing; however, the application of consumer behavior decision making to voter decision making is still an important research focus. Results from general elections around the world show that the turnout among young adults tends to be lower than in the general electorate, suggesting low interest and involvement in politics. This qualitative study investigated low-involvement decision making of young adult voters in Australia. Data were compiled from semistructured face-to-face interviews conducted with 29 young adults to explore their views, and NVivo software was used to assist with thematic analysis. Findings suggest that with low-involvement voter decision making, perceived knowledge and passive information seeking are important factors. Exposure to the media also plays an important role, and young voters rely more on traditional media such as newspapers and television than on social media for current political information.     

我国参与式公共服务供给模式研究——理论模型与经验证据

文章采用一般均衡研究方法,通过构建一个参与式公共服务供给模型,从反面证明了我国目前公共服务供给模式低效的基本事实,而且在迁移成本很小或可忽略不计的假设下,居民会通过"用脚投票"自行配置公共服务资源。文章还使用上海某区4个街道的问卷调查数据,运用拉丁方方差分析法检验理论模型的结论,检验结果支持理论模型的结论。文章最后根据我国国情给出提高我国公共服务供给效率和质量的若干建议。     

股东大会表决机制的嬗变及法理分析

在公司发展史上,适应不同的历史背景和法理基础,股东大会表决机制经历了从"一致同意"到"多数决",从"人头多数决"到"资本多数决",从"绝对资本多数决"到"相对资本多数决"的更迭过程。从股东大会表决机制的嬗变可以看出现代公司法的指导原则和发展趋势是向更大的平等性迈进,在坚持资本多数决原则的基础上日益注重平衡多数股东和少数股东间的利益,强调对少数股东的公平保护。