Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal最新文献

{"title":"The Volatility of Survey Measures of Culture and its Consequences","authors":"G. Zanella, Marina Bellani","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3483968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3483968","url":null,"abstract":"Common measures of cultural attitudes, such as those constructed from the World Values Survey, are characterized by substantial within-country volatility. This volatility is at odds with the notion of culture adopted in economics: a set of slow-moving traits that determine preferences and expectations transmitted from one generation to the next via family or social interactions. The insufficient persistence of survey proxies for such traits may compromise empirical studies of culture as a determinant of economic outcomes. We illustrate this point via a thorough replication, using the most recent WVS waves, of analyses carried out previously for regions in Europe.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128573567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Real Effects of Markets on Politics: Evidence from U.S. Presidential Elections","authors":"Alan D. Crane, Andrew Koch, Leming Lin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3460209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3460209","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the economic importance of the U.S. stock market, there is strikingly little evidence of its impact on elections. Using county-level variation in stock market participation, we document a causal impact of market returns on election outcomes. High-participation counties are more likely to vote for the incumbent party when the market has performed well relative to low-participation counties. The effect is weaker in Republican-leaning counties and more politically active counties, and comes mostly through the intensive margin rather than affecting turnout. Our findings provide evidence of a novel channel through which stock market fluctuations could be transmitted into the real economy.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126899045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stress-Testing the Runoff Rule in the Laboratory","authors":"Nikolas Tsakas, Dimitrios Xefteris","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3444348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3444348","url":null,"abstract":"When a majority of voters has common values, but private information, then the runoff rule always admits an equilibrium that aggregates information strictly better than the best equilibrium of the plurality rule. But there are cases in which the plurality rule supports equilibria that are strictly better compared to certain undominated equilibria of the runoff rule. Is there any risk with applying the runoff rule in these situations? We conduct a laboratory experiment and we show that the runoff rule consistently delivers better outcomes than the plurality rule even in such unfavorable scenarios. This establishes that the superiority of the runoff rule over the plurality rule in empirical settings outperforms its theoretical advantages.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130259302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Precise or Imprecise Probabilities? Evidence from Survey Response on Late-Onset Dementia","authors":"Pamela Giustinelli, C. Manski, Francesca Molinari","doi":"10.3386/W26125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W26125","url":null,"abstract":"We elicit numerical expectations for late-onset dementia in the Health and Retirement Study. Our elicitation distinguishes between precise and imprecise probabilities, while accounting for rounding of reports. Respondents quantify imprecision using probability intervals. Nearly half of respondents hold imprecise dementia probabilities, while almost a third of precise-probability respondents round their reports. We provide the first empirical evidence on dementia-risk perceptions among dementia-free older Americans and novel evidence about imprecise probabilities in a nationally-representative sample. We show, in a specific framework, that failing to account for imprecise or rounded probabilities can yield incorrect predictions of long-term care insurance purchase decisions.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129966132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trust in Politics, Electoral Processes and Influences on Economy in Western Balkans, 2019","authors":"Eduart Gjokutaj","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3400661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3400661","url":null,"abstract":"The majority of democratic governments consider participating in national elections a right of citizenship, and also a citizen's civic responsibility. Historical legacies play a key role in the process of state-building and democratization. The WB6 countries have never had this historic chance to inherit a collective memory of a strong, well-governed democratic government, elected by voters and in the general interest of voters.<br><br>In this regional context on the electoral process and the relations between political parties, there remains a continuing concern of regional CSOs' cooperation in the WB6 countries, which may require a strategic future move, which could alleviate the limits of the critical mass of voters. On the other hand, democratic governance in multilateral societies requires a willingness to live together and reach out to its citizens through consensual decisions.<br><br>The idea of electoral democracies process derives from the understanding that elections are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for modern democracy, because elections alone are not enough.<br><br>The trust in governments in the WB6 countries is falling. The perception and the reality are in unison that elected people are acting less often in the interests of the voters they elected. People are less trusting of expertise delivered by politicians and analysts related to them. Year after year, trust of voters has been eroded by the perception that politicians don’t always use public funds in the public interest. Public cynicism about politicians and their motives is fed by stories of high officials abusing with entitlements and appointing their former colleagues or related parties with them into generously paid, taxpayer-funded positions.<br><br>We will try to express in this analyze our own interest in election fraud, but several factors make it difficult to define a common understanding of what election fraud is, much less how to detect and prevent it. Knowledge of politics and public affairs by large numbers of citizens, coupled with their participation through voting and other modes of citizen voice, are important potential checks on the ability of politicians and bureaucrats to not have so much possible ways to realize the electoral fraud.<br><br>The national economic situation has been shown to have had less impact on the share of votes won by each party at the regional level, as the regional economic situation has had much stronger influence on the voter decision. In particular, for example, rising national per capita income and unemployment rates have strong effects on election results at the national level if they would be clarified and translated into the context of profitability of voters at regional level.<br><br>In this political and social environment are presented the new political anti establishment organizations, like the nowadays business model of startups.<br><br>This model is seen that would be the new era of political forces instead o","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129777304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do Welfare Benefits Pay Electoral Dividends? Evidence from the Food Stamp Program Rollout","authors":"Vladimir Kogan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2874410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2874410","url":null,"abstract":"Growing evidence suggests that pocketbook considerations influence voting behavior in the U.S. and other developed countries and that incumbents can use targeted government benefits to win voter support. It remains unclear whether the general relationship between government spending and incumbent support also holds for means-tested welfare programs, however. I contribute to this empirical literature by taking advantage of the decade-long rollout of the American Food Stamp Program. The staggered timing of local program implementation allows me to credibly estimate the causal effect of this new benefit on election outcomes. Overall, I find that Democrats -- at the center of the program's enacting coalition -- gained votes when the program was implemented locally, apparently through mobilization of new supporters rather than the conversion of political opponents.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126551340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tying the Politicians’ Hands: The Optimal Limits to Representative Democracy","authors":"D. Laussel, N. Long","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3105514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3105514","url":null,"abstract":"We study the optimal delegation problem which arises between the median voter (writer of the constitution) and the (future) incumbent politician when not only the state of the world and but also the politician’s type (preferred policy) are the policy-maker’s private information. We show that it is optimal to tie the hands of the politician by imposing him/her both a policy floor and a policy cap and delegating him/her the policy choice only in between. The delegation interval is shown to be the smaller the greater is the uncertainty about the politician’s type. These results apply outside the specific problem to which our model is applied here.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123465205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Would Delegates Do? When and Why the Delegate Paradox Matters","authors":"Matthew H. Graham, Lilla V. Orr","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3393246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3393246","url":null,"abstract":"The consensus that American politicians are more ideologically extreme than voters has been challenged by the observation that issue delegates---who adopt voters' majority position on each issue---can be more extreme than the median voter. We deepen understanding of this \"delegate paradox\" by showing that it is conditional. Issue delegates are much more extreme than the median voter in left- and right-leaning constituencies, but not in evenly divided or ideologically purist constituencies. Consequently, the delegate paradox (1) matters most under conditions that have recently emerged in American politics, but (2) still cannot explain the disconnect between legislators and evenly-divided constituencies like states and competitive House districts. We verify these implications by replicating and extending two prominent studies. Although issue delegates representing full states are not much more extreme than the median voter, party issue delegates have moved to the extremes at nearly twice the rate of party median voters and are just as extreme as legislators.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123689289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Demagogues in America: From the Revolution to the Second World War","authors":"D. Bernhardt, Stefan Krasa, Mehdi Shadmehr","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3388946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3388946","url":null,"abstract":"We define demagogues as anti-establishment politicians who provide simplistic explanations and solutions for the people's problems. We identify two key forms of these simplistic solutions: those that ignore resource constraints and those that blame particular ethnic or cultural groups for resource shortfalls. <br><br>There are two main results: <br><br>(1) demagogues arise on the national stage in the form of presidential contenders in the aftermath of an economic crisis, or during the slow recovery that follows. <br><br>(2) Established parties often adjust their positions toward demagogues to fend them off (e.g., FDR in the mid 1930s); and when they refuse (e.g., John Quincy Adams), demagogues win and implement far worse policies that destroy physical and social capital. <br><br>We highlight how concerns for demagogues dominated the thinking of Americans in the Revolutionary Era and the Early Republic, and were a main factor behind the Constitutional Movement.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"87 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129807547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ballot-Marking Devices (BMDs) Cannot Assure the Will of the Voters","authors":"A. Appel, R. DeMillo, Philip B. Stark","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3375755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3375755","url":null,"abstract":"Computers, including all modern voting systems, can be hacked and misprogrammed. The scale and complexity of U.S. elections may require the use of computers to count ballots, but election integrity requires a paper-ballot voting system in which, regardless of how they are initially counted, ballots can be re- counted by hand to check whether election outcomes have been altered by buggy or hacked software. Furthermore, secure voting systems must be able to recover from any errors that might have occurred. \u0000 \u0000However, paper ballots provide no assurance unless they accurately record the vote as the voter expresses it. Voters can express their intent by hand-marking a ballot with a pen, or using a computer called a ballot-marking device (BMD), which generally has a touchscreen and assistive interfaces. Voters can make mistakes in expressing their intent in either technology, but only the BMD is also subject to systematic error from computer hacking or bugs in the process of recording the vote on paper, after the voter has expressed it. A hacked BMD can print a vote on the paper ballot that differs from what the voter expressed, or can omit a vote that the voter expressed. \u0000 \u0000It is not easy to check whether BMD output accurately reflects how one voted in every contest. Research shows that most voters do not review paper ballots printed by BMDs, even when clearly instructed to check for errors. Furthermore, most voters who do review their ballots do not check carefully enough to notice errors that would change how their votes were counted. Finally, voters who detect BMD errors before casting their ballots, can correct only their own ballots, not systematic errors, bugs, or hacking. There is no action that a voter can take to demonstrate to election officials that a BMD altered their expressed votes, and thus no way voters can help deter, detect, contain, and correct computer hacking in elections. That is, not only is it inappropriate to rely on voters to check whether BMDs alter expressed votes, it doesn’t work. \u0000 \u0000Risk-limiting audits of a trustworthy paper trail can check whether errors in tabulating the votes as recorded altered election outcomes, but there is no way to check whether errors in how BMDs record expressed votes altered election out- comes. The outcomes of elections conducted on current BMDs therefore cannot be confirmed by audits. This paper identifies two properties of voting systems, contestability and defensibility, that are necessary conditions for any audit to con- firm election outcomes. No commercially available EAC-certified BMD is contestable or defensible. \u0000 \u0000To reduce the risk that computers undetectably alter election results by printing erroneous votes on the official paper audit trail, the use of BMDs should be limited to voters who require assistive technology to vote independently.","PeriodicalId":365899,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Voting & Public Opinion eJournal","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126803146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}