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A.J.H.C. Schram and F.A.A.M. van Winden, "The Role of Inter- and Intragroup Interaction in the Voter Turnout Decision", in: Essays in Economic Psychology by H. Brandstätter and W. Güth (eds.), Springer Verlag, 1994.
A model is presented which places the decision to vote or abstain in a rational choice framework. It is shown that casting a vote may well be a rational act, following from an individual cost-benefit analysis. It is argued that (reference-)group interests play an important role when an individual determines actions in the political sphere. Through its (relative) turnout, a group can affect future tax rates to which its members are liable, and an optimal turnout-level is derived for each group. Using this optimal level, within-group processes are analyzed, where certain group members ('producers of social pressure') try to convince others to go and vote. For these producers, voting is shown to be a rational act. Other members may give in to this pressure and be induced to cast a vote. These members may be thought to vote out of a sense of 'civic duty'. Equilibria for the model, characterized by positive turnout, are derived, an example is presented, and the results are discussed.
A. van Riel and A.J.H.C. Schram, "Weimar Woes and the Authoritarian Alternative: Politicoeconomic Developments in Interbellum Germany", in: Selected Cliometric Studies on German Economic History, by J. Komlos and S. Eddie (eds.), Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 218-260.
A politicoeconomic model of the relationship between economic and structural variables and government popularity is developed and applied to the Weimar Republic. We obtained data from decentralized election results in the 1924 to 1933 period, using a weighted panel estimation method. Parameter estimates show a strong relationship between the development of economic variables and the decline in electoral support that confronted every government in this period. We link this finding to existing historiographic theories and extrapolate from it to estimate the effects of economic recovery in the first years of the Nazi regime.
A. Schram, "Experimental Public Choice", in: Encyclopedia of Public Choice, by Ch. Rowley and F. Schneider, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, pp. 96-104.
This paper gives an overview of experimental research on public goods, voter turnout, rent-seeking and lobbying, and spatial voting. [pdf-file]
G. Bornstein, A.J.H.C. Schram, and J. Sonnemans, "Do Democracies breed Chickens?", in: Contemporary Psychological Research on Social Dilemmas, by R. Suleiman, D. Budescu, I. Fischer and D. Messick (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 248-268.
Our interest is in as-ses-sing the ef-fect of different group decision-rules (or 'regimes') on conflict resolution. Toward this goal, we model intergroup conflict as a two-stage Chicken game between two groups (teams) of players and distinguish two decision-making procedures for determining a team's choice: democracy (majority rule) and dictatorship (one individual makes the team's decision). In an experiment with three individuals per team, we found that (i) decision-making procedures had no effect on choices at the team level; (ii) decision-making procedures did not affect first-stage choices by individuals; (iii) in the second stage, individuals in democracies were more likely to concede than dictators; (iv) dictators facing a democratic team were least likely to concede, whereas individuals in a democratic team facing a dictator were most likely to concede. [pdf-file]