We examine the incentives of regions in a country to unite or toseparate. We find that smaller regions have greater incentives tounite, relative to larger regions. We show, however, that on thewhole, majority voting on separation and union generates excessiveincentives to separate. This leads us...

The paper empirically analyzes whether electoral rules make legislators differently responsive to changes in fiscal incentives. Key to the analysis are two unique reforms in the German state of Lower Saxony which changed (i) the municipal charter by replacing the council-manager system...

This brief survey of the origins of electoral system is intended to explain the nature center and get the changes of political system in Colombia. A historical evaluation is necessary. In a wider context the work of Josep Colomer are illustrative. Our goal is to synthesize and compare the...

The Anglo-American double-member districts employing plurality-at-large are frequently criticized for giving a large majority premium to a winning party, since the large premium may decrease proportionality of the elected assembly relative to single-member districts. We demonstrate that the...

We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a "dark side", that is, result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. In line with theoretical...

Whether individuals vote strategically is one of the most important questions at the intersection of economics and political science. Exploiting a aw in the German electoral system by which a party may gain seats by receiving fewer votes, this paper documents patterns of preference...

Motivated by the need of understanding voting behavior under different electoral rules, Laslier et al. (2015) have conducted an online experiment in several European countries during the three weeks before the 2014 elections for the European Parliament, the EuroVotePlus experiment. This paper...

This paper examines some neglected implications of altruism in deterministic voting models in settings where voters differ in their altruistic propensities. Of particular interest is the extent to which relatively small groups of altruistic voters can affect electoral outcomes by simply casting...

Democratic direct voting on issues (in the form of referenda) suffers from the tyranny of the majority as well as potentially supporting extremist and populist positions. We state 4 fair voting principles for issue based voting, and show that current direct voting systems are not consistent with...

We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a “dark side”, i.e. result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. We develop a model to predict how...