We study popular initiatives as an important element of direct democracy. The initiative process is modelled as a sequential game under uncertainty: petitioners collect signatures to qualify the initiative and elicit information about the initiative's winning probability. Politicians decide...

This paper analyzes a recent ballot in which two virtually identical popular initiatives, both demanding a decrease in the legal age of retirement in Switzerland, led to differences in approval rates of nearly seven percentage points. Based on this unique natural experiment, the existence of...

No voters cast their votes based on perfect information, but richer voters are on average best informed. We develop a model where the voting mistakes resulting from low political knowledge reduce the weight of poor voters, and cause parties to choose political platforms that are better aligned...