The Experts below are selected from a list of 26808 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
James A Robinson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the indigenous roots of Representative Democracy
Social Science Research Network, 2015Co-Authors: Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, Jacob Gerner Hariri, James A RobinsonAbstract:We document that rules for leadership succession in ethnic societies that antedate the modern state predict contemporary political regimes; leadership selection by election in indigenous societies is associated with contemporary Representative Democracy. The basic association, however, is conditioned on the relative strength of the indigenous groups within a country; stronger groups seem to have been able to shape national regime trajectories, weaker groups do not. This finding extends and qualifies a substantive qualitative literature, which has found in local democratic institutions of medieval Europe a positive impulse towards the development of Representative Democracy. It shows that contemporary regimes are shaped not only by colonial history and European influence; indigenous history also matters. For practitioners, our findings suggest that external reformers' capacity for regime-building should not be exaggerated.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
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the indigenous roots of Representative Democracy
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015Co-Authors: Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, Jacob Gerner Hariri, James A RobinsonAbstract:We document that rules for leadership succession in ethnic societies that antedate the modern state predict contemporary political regimes; leadership selection by election in indigenous societies is associated with contemporary Representative Democracy. The basic association, however, is conditioned on the relative strength of the indigenous groups within a country; stronger groups seem to have been able to shape national regime trajectories, weaker groups do not. This finding extends and qualifies a substantive qualitative literature, which has found in local democratic institutions of medieval Europe a positive impulse towards the development of Representative Democracy. It shows that contemporary regimes are shaped not only by colonial history and European influence; indigenous history also matters. For practitioners, our findings suggest that external reformers' capacity for regime-building should not be exaggerated.
Jongchul Kim - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the trust is central to an understanding of modern banking business corporations and Representative Democracy a reply to hayden heiden s comments
Social Science Research Network, 2014Co-Authors: Jongchul KimAbstract:Elsewhere (Kim 2013) I have argued that the trust is central to an adequate understanding of the capitalist institutions of modern banking, the business corporation, and Representative Democracy. This paper has generated a comment by Greg Hayden and Andrew E. Heiden. Hayden and Heiden argue that, because the trust is a legal instrument, it cannot be used to understand more complex social institutions. In this paper I reply to their argument and refute them.
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how politics shaped modern banking in early modern england rethinking the nature of Representative Democracy public debt and modern banking
Social Science Research Network, 2012Co-Authors: Jongchul KimAbstract:The recent sovereign debt crisis raises a debate on whether the cancelation of sovereign debt is compatible with Democracy. Scholars opposed to the cancelation of sovereign debt refer to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which the British government began to make the people as a whole liable for the obligations incurred by their government. These scholars argue that this commitment formed the basis of the development of the financial system. This paper criticizes this argument by identifying the intrinsic contradictions of Representative Democracy, public debt, and modern banking in early modern England, contradictions that were incompatible with the well-being and Democracy of a community. It further examines how the contradictions of Representative Democracy and public debt contributed to the evolution of modern banking at the time.
Lirong Xia - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a mathematical model for optimal decisions in a Representative Democracy
Neural Information Processing Systems, 2018Co-Authors: Malik Magdonismail, Lirong XiaAbstract:Direct Democracy, where each voter casts one vote, fails when the average voter competence falls below 50%. This happens in noisy settings when voters have limited information. Representative Democracy, where voters choose Representatives to vote, can be an elixir in both these situations. We introduce a mathematical model for studying Representative Democracy, in particular understanding the parameters of a Representative Democracy that gives maximum decision making capability. Our main result states that under general and natural conditions, 1. for fixed voting cost, the optimal number of Representatives is linear; 2. for polynomial cost, the optimal number of Representatives is logarithmic.
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a mathematical model for optimal decisions in a Representative Democracy
Research Papers in Economics, 2018Co-Authors: Malik Magdonismail, Lirong XiaAbstract:Direct Democracy is a special case of an ensemble of classifiers, where every person (classifier) votes on every issue. This fails when the average voter competence (classifier accuracy) falls below 50%, which can happen in noisy settings where voters have only limited information, or when there are multiple topics and the average voter competence may not be high enough for some topics. Representative Democracy, where voters choose Representatives to vote, can be an elixir in both these situations. Representative Democracy is a specific way to improve the ensemble of classifiers. We introduce a mathematical model for studying Representative Democracy, in particular understanding the parameters of a Representative Democracy that gives maximum decision making capability. Our main result states that under general and natural conditions, 1. Representative Democracy can make the correct decisions simultaneously for multiple noisy issues. 2. When the cost of voting is fixed, the optimal Representative Democracy requires that Representatives are elected from constant sized groups: the number of Representatives should be linear in the number of voters. 3. When the cost and benefit of voting are both polynomial, the optimal group size is close to linear in the number of voters. This work sets the mathematical foundation for studying the quality-quantity tradeoff in a Representative Democracy-type ensemble (fewer highly qualified Representatives versus more less qualified Representatives).
Stephen Coate - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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lobbying and welfare in a Representative Democracy
The Review of Economic Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Timothy Besley, Stephen CoateAbstract:This paper studies the impact of lobbying on political competition and policy outcomes in a framework which integrates the citizen-candidate model of Representative Democracy with the menu-auction model of lobbying. Positive and normative issues are analysed. On the positive side, lobbying need have little or no effect on policy outcomes, because voters can restrict the influence of lobbyists by supporting candidates with offsetting policy preferences. On the normative side, coordination failure among lobbyists can result in Pareto inefficient policy choices. In addition, by creating rents to holding office, lobbying can lead to 'excessive' entry into electoral competition.
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sources of inefficiency in a Representative Democracy a dynamic analysis
The American Economic Review, 1998Co-Authors: Timothy Besley, Stephen CoateAbstract:This paper studies the efficiency of policy choice in Representative democracies. It extends the citizen-candidate model of democratic policy-making to a dynamic environment. Equilibrium policy choices are shown to be efficient in the sense that, in each period, conditional on future policies being selected through the democratic process, there exists no alternative current policy choices which can raise the expected utilities of all citizens. However, policies that would be declared efficient by standard economic criteria are not necessarily adopted in political equilibrium. The paper argues that these divergencies are legitimately viewed as 'political failures.' Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.
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An Economic Model of Representative Democracy
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1997Co-Authors: Timothy Besley, Stephen CoateAbstract:This paper develops an approach to the study of democratic policy-making where politicians are selected by the people from those citizens who present them- selves as candidates for public office. The approach has a number of attractive features. First, it is a conceptualization of a pure form of Representative democ- racy in which government is by, as well as of, the people. Second, the model is analytically tractable, being able to handle multidimensional issue and policy spaces very naturally. Third, it provides a vehicle for answering normative ques- tions about the performance of Representative Democracy.
Malik Magdonismail - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a mathematical model for optimal decisions in a Representative Democracy
Neural Information Processing Systems, 2018Co-Authors: Malik Magdonismail, Lirong XiaAbstract:Direct Democracy, where each voter casts one vote, fails when the average voter competence falls below 50%. This happens in noisy settings when voters have limited information. Representative Democracy, where voters choose Representatives to vote, can be an elixir in both these situations. We introduce a mathematical model for studying Representative Democracy, in particular understanding the parameters of a Representative Democracy that gives maximum decision making capability. Our main result states that under general and natural conditions, 1. for fixed voting cost, the optimal number of Representatives is linear; 2. for polynomial cost, the optimal number of Representatives is logarithmic.
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a mathematical model for optimal decisions in a Representative Democracy
Research Papers in Economics, 2018Co-Authors: Malik Magdonismail, Lirong XiaAbstract:Direct Democracy is a special case of an ensemble of classifiers, where every person (classifier) votes on every issue. This fails when the average voter competence (classifier accuracy) falls below 50%, which can happen in noisy settings where voters have only limited information, or when there are multiple topics and the average voter competence may not be high enough for some topics. Representative Democracy, where voters choose Representatives to vote, can be an elixir in both these situations. Representative Democracy is a specific way to improve the ensemble of classifiers. We introduce a mathematical model for studying Representative Democracy, in particular understanding the parameters of a Representative Democracy that gives maximum decision making capability. Our main result states that under general and natural conditions, 1. Representative Democracy can make the correct decisions simultaneously for multiple noisy issues. 2. When the cost of voting is fixed, the optimal Representative Democracy requires that Representatives are elected from constant sized groups: the number of Representatives should be linear in the number of voters. 3. When the cost and benefit of voting are both polynomial, the optimal group size is close to linear in the number of voters. This work sets the mathematical foundation for studying the quality-quantity tradeoff in a Representative Democracy-type ensemble (fewer highly qualified Representatives versus more less qualified Representatives).
