Who is left-wing, and who just thinks they are?

A common assumption in political economy is that there exists a consistent and well defined policy space. Often, this space is assumed to be adequately represented by a single `left' - `right' dimension. This paper makes the case that it is not only convenient but also meaningful to talk of the left and the right. Motivated, in part, by recent work in political psychology, this paper compares how individuals place themselves on a left-right scale with their answers to substantive policy questions, to provide evidence that the left-right scale has a consistent meaning across time and place. It is also finds consistent differences in how different demographic groups perceive the `left'-`right' continuum. In particular, it finds important differences associated with ageing, gender, income and education. It provides evidence that this is true for both abstract alternatives and concrete choices, questions of redistribution and broader conceptions of social justice. Heterogeneity is taken seriously, analysing variation within cohorts defined by country, date of birth, and gender - a variety of different forms are hypothesised, tested for, and rejected. Finally, it provides evidence that increases in income may lead to increased levels of political polarisation.Ideology, Voter Preferences, Voting, Polarization

Reconsidering the Fiscal Effects of Constitutions

This paper reconsiders Persson and Tabellini’s (2003,2004) analysis of the causal effect of constitution type on government size, it addresses the concerns of Acemoglu ( 2005) and makes some further refinements to argue that there is a qualitatively large, and statistically significant relationship between constitution type and government size. The age of a democracy is of increased importance in the new identification strategy, but existing measures are shown to be flawed. Two new measures of the age of a democracy are introduced. The first details when a country first had a genuinely democratic election, the second when its current constitution was promulgated.

Which Democracies Pay Higher Wages?

This paper asks if and how constitutions affect labour market outcomes. This question is motivated by Rodrik (1999), who suggests that 'democracies pay higher wages' and Persson and Tabellini (2003) who provide evidence that constitutions impact on economic outcomes. An empirical analysis using treatment effect estimators and Bayesian Model Averaging provides robust causal evidence that presidential democracies are associated with lower wages, after controlling for other potential determinants such as the level of income per capita.Democracy, Constitutions, Wages, Factor Shares, Bayesian Model Averaging

Which Democracies Pay Higher Wages?*

The labor share of income varies markedly across the set of democracies. A model of the political process, situated in a simple macroeconomic environment is analyzed in which the cause of this variation is linked to differences in the form of democracy - in particular the adoption of a presidential or parliamentary system. Presidential regimes are associated with lower taxation but lower wages. Robust evidence for the negative impact of a presidential system on the labor share is obtained using a Bayesian Model Averaging approach. Evidence is also provided that this is due to lower taxation.Fertility; Economic growth; Health expenditures

Ideology and the Growth of Government

We analyze the impact of ideology on the size of government. In a simple model the government sets redistribution and provision of public services according to the preferences of the median voter, for whom private consumption is a necessity. Ideology is defined on preferences for public services and the impact of ideology upon the size of government increases with mean income. In empirical work ideology is measured using data based on party manifestos. Much of the increases and divergence in government size observed across OECD countries can be explained by the interaction of ideology and mean income.ideology, Wagner's law, size of government

Party Formation and Competition

In the majority of democratic political systems, districts elect representatives, who form coalitions, which determine policies. In this paper we present a model which captures this process: A citizen-candidate model with multiple policy dimensions in which elected representatives endogenously choose to form parties. Numerical analysis shows that in equilibrium this model produces qualitatively realistic outcomes which replicate key features of cross-country empirical data, including variation consistent with Duverger's law. The numbers of policy dimensions and representatives elected per district are shown to determine the number, size, and relative locations of parties. Whilst multi-member district systems are found to reduce welfare.Citizen-Candidate Model; Political Competition; Party Formation; Duverger’s Law; Computer Simulation

Expressive voting: the desire of voters to boo parties they dislike has become an important predictor of turnout

Javier Rivas and James Rockey explain how voters’ desire to boo for candidates they dislike, rather than cheer for candidates they do like, has been increasingly important at recent elections. They also find that the importance of booing is greater amongst the least well-off voters, which helps explain the success of extremist ideas in the UK and Europe since the 2008 financial crisis

Ideology and the growth of US state government

This paper analyzes the impact of ideology on the size of US state governments. Following Pickering and Rockey (2011) this impact is hypothesized to increase with mean state income. This idea is tested using state-level ideology data derived from the voting behavior of state congressional representatives. Empirically the interaction of ideology and mean income is a key determinant of state government size. At 1960s levels of income the impact of ideology is negligible. At 1997 levels of income a one standard-deviation move towards the left of the ideology spectrum increases state government size by about half a standard deviation. Estimated income elasticities differentiated by state and time are found to be increasing with ideology and diminishing with income, as predicted by the theory

Negative voters : electoral competition with loss-aversion

This paper studies how voter loss-aversion affects electoral competition in a Downsian setting. Assuming that the voters’ reference point is the status quo, we show that loss-aversion has a number of effects. First, for some values of the status quo, there is policy rigidity both parties choose platforms equal to the status quo, regardless of other parameters. Second, there is a moderation effect when there is policy rigidity, the equilibrium policy outcome is closer to the moderate voters’ ideal point than in the absence of loss-aversion. In a dynamic extension of the model, we consider how parties strategically manipulate the status quo to their advantage, and we find that this increases policy rigidity. Finally, we show that with loss-aversion, incumbents adjust less than challengers to changes in voter preferences. The underlying force is that the status quo works to the advantage of the incumbent. This prediction of asymmetric adjustment is new, and we test it using elections to US state legislatures. The results are as predicted: incumbent parties respond less to shocks in the preferences of the median voter