We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental three-player contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending...

We provide causal evidence that German savings banks – where local politicians are by law involved in their management – systematically adjust lending policies in response to local electoral cycles. The different timing of county elections across states and the existence of a control group...

This paper experimentally examines the effect of electoral delegation on providing global public goods shared by several groups. Each group elects a delegate who can freely decide on each group member’s contribution (including the contribution of herself) to the global public good. Our results...

Arguments are statements used to persuade someone or in support of a claim. However, these are not perfect and part are be exploited by the opponent to build its own argumentation. In this paper we present a litigation success function (LSF) that considers the quality of the plainti¤ and...

In the very popular FOX TV reality show, American Idol, the judges, who are presumably experts in evaluating singing effort, have no voting power when the field is narrowed to the top twenty-four contestants. It is only the votes of viewers that count. In the 2007 season of the show, Simon...

George Orwell is famous for his two final fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. These two works are sometimes understood to defend capitalism against socialism. But as Orwell was a committed socialist, this could not have been his intention. Orwell's criticisms were directed not...

This paper aims at presenting a new voting function which is obtained in Balinski-Laraki's framework and benefits mean and median advantages. The so-called Mean-Median Comprise Method (MMCM) has fulfilled criteria such as unanimity, neutrality, anonymity, monotonicity, and Arrow's independence...

This work analyzes the impact of asymmetric financial constraints on the platforms of parties using a formal model of elections. Main results show that when a party faces a tight financial constraint the platform chosen in equilibrium is further away from its ideal point compared to the case...

We propose a differential game approach to analyze two--candidate competition in a la Hotelling game with candidates simultaneously choosing locations and investment in valence. We find a Markov perfect equilibrium in which candidates choose divergent locations. Divergence from the median is...

Using a unique set of electoral rules present in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, we explore the question whether local electoral rules affect the size of local governments. We find evidence that party--list system is associated with higher levels of expenditure and that direct elections of the...