The paper proposes a way to measure the mechanical and psychological effects of majority runoff versus plurality. Building on a series of laboratory experiments on presidential-type elections, we evaluate these effects with respect to the probability of election of a centrist candidate. In our...

We report on laboratory experiments on voting. In a setting where subjects have single-peaked preferences we find that the rational choice theory provides very good predictions of actual individual behavior in one-round and approval voting elections, but fares poorly in explaining vote choice...

We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity...