Group Incentives and Rational Voting

Our model describes competition between groups driven by the choices of self-interested voters within groups. Within a Poisson voting environment, parties observe aggregate support from groups and can allocate prizes or punishments to them. In a tournament style analysis, the model characterizes how contingent allocation of prizes based on relative levels of support affects equilibrium voting behavior. In addition to standard notions of pivotality, voters influence the distribution of prizes across groups. Such prize pivotality supports positive voter turnout even in non-competitive electoral settings. The analysis shows that competition for a prize awarded to the most supportive group is only stable when two groups actively support a party. However, competition among groups to avoid punishment is stable in environments with any number of groups. We conclude by examining implications for endogenous group formation and how politicians structure the allocation of rewards and punishments.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

Coercing Compliance with the ICC: Empirical Assessment and Theoretical Implications

Article published in the Michigan State International Law Review

An Evolutionary Analysis of Turnout With Conformist Citizens

We propose an evolutionary analysis of a voting game where citizens have a preference for conformism that adds to the instrumental preference for the electoral outcome. Multiple equilibria arise, and some generate high turnout. Simulations of best response dynamics show that high turnout is asymptotically stable if conformism matters but its likelihood depends on the reference group for conformism: high turnout is more likely when voters care about their own group's choice, as this better overrides the free rider problem of voting games. Comparative statics on the voting cost distribution, the population's size or the groups' composition are also done.Turnout, Turnout, coordination games, Poisson games, conformism, selection dynamics.

Flip-Flopping, Primary Visibility, and the Selection of Candidates

We present an incomplete information model of two-stage elections in which candidates can choose different platforms in primaries and general elections. Voters do not directly observe the chosen platforms, but infer the candidates’ ideologies from observing candidates’ campaigns. The ability of voters to detect candidates’ types depends on the visibility of the race. This model captures two patterns: the post-primary moderation effect, in which candidates pander to the party base during the primary and shift to the center in the general election; and the divisive-primary effect, which refers to the detrimental effect of hard-fought primaries on a party's general-election prospects

Influence of dimensional incentives on voters’ turnout in 2014 and 2015 gubernatorial elections in Southwestern, Nigeria

Incentives  in  exchange  for  votes  during  elections  have  become  a  culture  in  Nigeria.  Past  studies  emphasized  on  monetary incentives while no known studies have been carried out on the new dimension of incentives to influence  voters' turnout adopted in 2014 and 2015 gubernatorial elections in Nigeria. This paper attempts to uncover what is  behind  people’s  voting  behaviour  in  gubernatorial  elections  (2014  and  2015)  in  Southwestern,  Nigeria  using  questionnaire administered to 1266 respondents and 76 respondents were interviewed. Results showed that parties'  candidates distributed customized goods (69.3%), credit cards and branded goods collected in kangaroo ceremonies  and social media (58.2%) to entice voters. Financial aids were given to rural women prior and during elections by  traditional  institutions  and  security  agents.  The  paper  concludes  that  candidates  and  collaborators  who  used  any  forms of incentives to entice voters or influence the outcome of elections deserve prosecution.Key words: Incentives, Dimensional, Voters' turnout, Gubernatorial elections,  Southwester

Protest voting in the laboratory

Formal analysis predicts that the likelihood of an electoral accident depends on the preference intensity for a successful protest, but not on the protest's popularity: an increase in protest's popularity is fully offset by a reduction in the individual probability of casting a protest vote. By conducting the first laboratory experiment on protest voting, we find strong evidence in favor of the first prediction and qualified support for the latter. While the offset effect is present, it is not as strong as the theory predicts: protest candidates gain both by fanaticising existing protesters and by expanding the protest's popular base

Automated Update Tools To Augment the Wisdom of Crowds in Geopolitical Forecasting

Despite the importance of predictive judgments, individual human forecasts are frequently less accurate than those of even simple prediction algorithms. At the same time, not all forecasts are amenable to algorithmic prediction. Here, we describe the evaluation of an automated prediction tool that enabled participants to create simple rules that monitored relevant indicators (e.g., commodity prices) to automatically update forecasts. We examined these rules in both a pool of previous participants in a geopolitical forecasting tournament (Study 1) and a naïve sample recruited from Mechanical Turk (Study 2). Across the two studies, we found that automated updates tended to improve forecast accuracy relative to initial forecasts and were comparable to manual updates. Additionally, making rules improved the accuracy of manual updates. Crowd forecasts likewise benefitted from rule-based updates. However, when presented with the choice of whether to accept, reject or adjust an automatic forecast update, participants showed little ability to discriminate between automated updates that were harmful versus beneficial to forecast accuracy. Simple prospective rule-based tools are thus able to improve forecast accuracy by offering accurate and efficient updates, but ensuring forecasters make use of tools remains a challenge