Do democratically chosen rules lead to more cooperation and, hence, higher efficiency, than imposed rules? To discuss when such a "dividend of democracy" obtains, we review experimental studies in which material incentives remain stacked against cooperation (i.e., free-riding incentives prevail)...

We examine whether and how democratic procedures can achieve socially desirable public good provision in the presence of profound uncertainty about the benefits of public goods, i.e., when citizens are able to identify the distribution of benefits only if they aggregate their private...

We examine whether and how democratic procedures can achieve socially desirable public good provision in the presence of profound uncertainty about the benefits of public goods, i.e., when citizens are able to identify the distribution of benefits only if they aggregate their private...

Wäre der Entscheidungsprozess zu Stuttgart 21 (S21) anders verlaufen, wenn es in Baden-Württemberg wirksame Mittel direkt-demokratischer Mitbestimmung gegeben hätte? Ziel dieses Beitrag ist es, Grenzen und Möglichkeiten direkt-demokratischer Verfahren am Beispiel des Großprojekts S21...

Populism in modern Western democracies is on the rise. The existing literature concentrates on explanations based on the growing socio-economic and socio-cultural polarisation of modern societies driven by globalisation and individualisation on the one hand and the unresponsiveness of...

In his excellent book Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens, Josiah Ober argues that ancient Athenian democracy surmounted the dangers of political ignorance and made effective use of dispersed citizen knowledge to forge good public policy. He effectively...

Which voting weights ought to be allocated to single delegates of differently sized groups from a democratic fairness perspective? We operationalize the ‘one person, one vote’ principle by demanding every individual’s influence on collective decisions to be equal a priori. The analysis...

In this paper we examine the potential of democratic constitutions for the provision of divisible public goods in a large economy. Our main insights are as follows: When aggregate shocks are absent, the combination of the following rules yields first-best allocations: a supermajority rule, equal...

We examine whether and how democratic procedures can achieve socially desirable public good provision in the presence of deep uncertainty about the benefits of the public good, i.e., when citizens are able to identify the distribution of benefits only if they aggregate their private information....

In this paper we examine the potential of democratic constitutions for the provision of divisible public goods in a large economy. Our main insights are as follows: When aggregate shocks are absent, the combination of the following rules yields first-best allocations: a supermajority rule, equal...