Voting as a Signaling Device

In this paper, citizens vote in order to influence the election outcome and in order to signal their unobserved characteristics to others. The model is one of rational voting and generates the following predictions: (i) The paradox of not voting does not arise, because the benefit of voting does not vanish with population size. (ii) Turnout in elections is positively related to the importance of social interactions. (iii) Voting may exhibit bandwagon effects and small changes in the electoral incentives may generate large changes in turnout due to signaling effects. (iv) Signaling incentives increase the sensitivity of turnout to voting incentives in communities with low opportunity cost of social interaction, while the opposite is true for communities with high cost of social interaction. Therefore, the model predicts less volatile turnout for the latter type of communities

Measuring Indecision in Happiness Studies

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the degree of uncertainty in self-reported happiness responses by means of a statistical model able to detect the relevant features of the expressed ratings. We consider a mixture model to address a twofold research question: how can we measure the indecision in expressed well-being; how to assess if this latent trait varies depending on the covariates of those surveyed? The selected modelling approach investigates the feeling/agreement component, making the underlying indecision explicit without imposing extra constraints to the model. Furthermore, our proposal allows to enhance the presence of a “refuge” option in the response patterns. The effects of individual characteristics may be highlighted, when significant. Results are presented stemming from an observational study showing that responses are characterized by a large variability among subjects. The methodology here experimented may be considered a general one since it can be exploited both in observational and in experimental surveys

Gender factors and female entrepreneurship: International evidence and policy implications

Entrepreneurship, Gender, International,