A live experiment on approval voting

This paper presents a large-scale experiment on the Approval Voting rule that took place during the 2002 French presidential election. We describe the experiment and its main results. The findings are as follows: (i) Such an experiment is feasible, and very well accepted by voters. (ii) The principle of approval voting is easily understood and accepted. (iii) Within the observed political context, compared to the official first-round vote, approval voting modifies the overall ranking of candidates. (iv) The candidates Le Pen and Chirac, more than the others, were able to convert approval votes into official first-round votes. JEL Classification C93, D70, D72     

我国上市公司独立董事选聘机制的重构

我国独立董事选聘机制各环节的执行现状存在较多问题,结合股东平等和股权平等原则,研究表明:在提名环节,视上市公司的股权结构,制定符合企业自身需求的提名制度,是选聘机制各环节执行的保障。比如:由提名委员会提名,同时对大股东提名权进行限制;在选举任命环节,全面引入并强制执行累积投票制度;在罢免环节,完善正当程序,建立披露制度和补偿机制。     

The structure of bias in peer voting systems: lessons from the Eurovision Song Contest

This paper assesses whether and how common characteristics of jury members or peer voters affect the outcomes of voting systems. In particular, we analyze to what extent these common features result in voting bias. We take as a case study the Eurovision Song Contest for which an extensive amount of historical data is available. In contrast to earlier studies we analyze the impact of common factors on the bias individually for each country, which is necessary to substantiate the publicly debated accusations of regional block voting by certain groups of countries. We establish strong evidence for voting bias in the song contest on the basis of geography, even after correction for culture, language, religion and ethnicity. However, these effects do generally not correspond to the usual accusations. We believe that our findings extend to all instances where groups of jury members or peer voters share certain common factors, which may cause voting bias. It is important to identify such structures explicitly, as it can help avoiding bias in the first place. The authors are grateful to Marieke van Dijk for excellent research assistance and to Laurens Swinkels, Ieva Pudane, Gijsbert van Lomwel, Jelena Stefanovic, and Bas van den Heuvel for useful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Political budget cycles and voting within a federal country: The influence of political alignment

We study how distributive politics affects political budget cycles and voting within a federal country. Our model predicts not only that the president favors politically aligned governors with larger transfers, but also that voters favor gubernatorial candidates aligned with the expected presidential incumbent because larger transfers are expected in the future. These predictions are upheld by the data from Argentinean provinces during the 1984–2014 period. Our findings imply that political alignment can trump the selection effect of voting the most competent candidate. This can help explain in particular coattail effects when gubernatorial and presidential elections are concurrent.     

Effects of runoff voting rules on number of parties and candidates' political experience: Evidence from a law change in Peru

We study the effect of a change in electoral rules on political competition, measured by the number of candidates and their political experience. We explore the effects of a change in legislation, introduced a year before the gubernatorial elections in Peru on the number of parties that participated in these elections. We also investigate how the legislative change affected the political experience of the candidates. Given that the legislative change did not apply to elections for provincial mayors, we use those elections as a control group, in a difference-in-differences design. Our estimates show the number of parties registered increased by a margin of around 2.2 after the legislative change. The change also increased the candidates' years of accumulated political experience, particularly in the subsequent gubernatorial elections.     

Economic transition and elections in Poland1

Poland's economic and political transition, one of the most successful, has depended very heavily on job creation in new firms to replace the jobs lost in the formerly state‐owned enterprises. This paper uses survey and aggregate data from three Polish elections to suggest that these de novo firms, the individuals they employ, and the residents in the local areas where they exist become an important constituency supporting pro‐reform political parties and constraining the actions of parties less sympathetic to the reforms. The creation of this political constituency helps explain how countries can successfully pursue both economic and political reforms. JEL classification: D72, P26.     

阿马蒂亚·森的价值限制定理研究

在简单介绍投票悖论的基础上 ,较系统地阐述了阿马蒂亚·森解决投票悖论问题的对策———价值限制定理 ,并对其进行了较为客观的评价。     

Promises,policies and pocketbook voting

Do voters respond to political parties׳ promises or to their past actions? We use a suitable sequence of events in Swedish politics to provide the first answer to this question. In the 1994 election campaign the Social Democrats proposed major cuts in transfers to parents with young children, whereas in the 1998 campaign they promised to increase transfers. The Social Democrats won both elections and delivered on both promises. Using voting among parents with slightly older children as counterfactual, we find that voters with young children responded markedly to economic promises rather than to implemented policies.     

Teachers and politics

I find that self-selection into teacher training programs in Germany is co-determined with ideology. Incoming teacher-trainees are more left-wing in ideology and political preferences than the average incoming university student. I find also that teacher training programs exert a socialization effect: as compared to the average student, teacher trainees’ views are reinforced and they become more left-wing as they progress in their studies. In a third step, I use the German Socio-Economic Panel to compare tenured teachers’ political attitudes with other university graduates and other civil servants, and find that tenured teachers are more left-wing than the average in the respective reference groups. I consider possible explanations for the left-wing orientation of teachers in the German educational system and implications of indoctrination and imbalance of views.