Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v163y2018icp60-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transparency in parliamentary voting

Author

Listed:
  • Benesch, Christine
  • Bütler, Monika
  • Hofer, Katharina E.
Abstract
How does transparency affect voting behavior? To answer this question we exploit a switch from a show of hands to electronic voting in the Upper House of the Swiss Parliament. The change, which took place halfway through the 2011–2015 legislative period, also brought about the online publication of individual voting records. Using the Lower House as a control group, we compare individual voting decisions in a set of identical votes in both chambers. This unique framework makes it possible to estimate the causal effect of increased transparency on legislators' choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Benesch, Christine & Bütler, Monika & Hofer, Katharina E., 2018. "Transparency in parliamentary voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 60-76.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:163:y:2018:i:c:p:60-76
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.04.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272718300604
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.04.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    2. Timothy Besley, 2005. "Political Selection," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 43-60, Summer.
    3. Canes-Wrone, Brandice & Brady, David W. & Cogan, John F., 2002. "Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members' Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 127-140, March.
    4. Galasso, Vincenzo & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2015. "So closed: Political selection in proportional systems," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 260-273.
    5. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107016064, October.
    6. John M. Carey, 2007. "Competing Principals, Political Institutions, and Party Unity in Legislative Voting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 92-107, January.
    7. David Stadelmann & Marco Portmann & Reiner Eichenberger, 2011. "Evaluating the Median Voter Model’s Explanatory Power," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-15, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    8. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107627314, October.
    9. Levitt, Steven D, 1996. "How Do Senators Vote? Disentangling the Role of Voter Preferences, Party Affiliation, and Senate Ideology," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 425-441, June.
    10. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107016040, October.
    11. Carrubba, Clifford J. & Gabel, Matthew & Murrah, Lacey & Clough, Ryan & Montgomery, Elizabeth & Schambach, Rebecca, 2006. "Off the Record: Unrecorded Legislative Votes, Selection Bias and Roll-Call Vote Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 691-704, October.
    12. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    13. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107638105, October.
    14. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107016057, October.
    15. McCarty, Nolan & Poole, Keith T. & Rosenthal, Howard, 2001. "The Hunt for Party Discipline in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(3), pages 673-687, September.
    16. Justin Fox, 2007. "Government transparency and policymaking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 23-44, April.
    17. Marco Portmann & David Stadelmann, 2013. "Testing the Median Voter Model and Moving Beyond its Limits: Do Characteristics of Politicians Matter?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2013-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    18. Acemoglu,Daron & Arellano,Manuel & Dekel,Eddie (ed.), 2013. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107674165, October.
    19. Scott Ashworth & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, 2008. "Informative Party Labels With Institutional and Electoral Variation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 251-273, July.
    20. Hug, Simon, 2010. "Selection Effects in Roll Call Votes," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 225-235, January.
    21. Hix, Simon & Noury, Abdul & Roland, Gérard, 2005. "Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979–2001," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 209-234, April.
    22. Reiner Eichenberger & David Stadelmann & Marco Portmann, 2012. "A comparative analysis of the voting behavior of constituents and their representatives for public debts," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 244-260, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lang, Matthias & Schudy, Simeon, 2023. "(Dis)honesty and the value of transparency for campaign promises," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Stadelmann, David & Torrens, Gustavo & Portmann, Marco, 2020. "Mapping the theory of political representation to the empirics: An investigation for proportional and majoritarian rules," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 548-560.
    3. Hensmans, Manuel, 2021. "Exploring the dark and bright sides of Internet democracy: Ethos-reversing and ethos-renewing digital transformation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. repec:ces:ifodic:v:17:y:2019:i:1:p:50000000005877 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fang, Ximeng & Ho, Chui Yee, 2024. "The effect of transparency on subjective evaluations: Evidence from competitive figure skating," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302427, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Cloléry, Héloïse, 2023. "Legislators in the crossfire: Strategic non-voting and the effect of transparency," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Portmann, Marco & Stadelmann, David & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2022. "Incentives dominate selection – Chamber-changing legislators are driven by electoral rules and voter preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 353-366.
    8. Stadelmann, David & Portmann, Marco & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2016. "The Influence of Party Affiliations on Representation of Voter Preferences in Majoritarian vs. Proportional Systems," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145705, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Fialkoff, Marc R. & Omitaomu, Olufemi A. & Peterson, Steven K. & Tuttle, Mark A., 2017. "Using geographic information science to evaluate legal restrictions on freight transportation routing in disruptive scenarios," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 60-74.
    10. Heloise Clolery, 2021. "Legislators in the Crossfire: The Effect of Transparency on Parliamentary Voting," Working Papers 2021-12, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    11. Christine Benesch & Monika Bütler & Katharina Hofer, 2019. "Who Benefits from More Transparency in Parliamentary Voting?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 17(01), pages 36-41, May.
    12. Hofer. Katharina, 2016. "Shirk or Work? On How Legislators React to Monitoring," Economics Working Paper Series 1616, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Denis Fougère & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2020. "Policy Evaluation Using Causal Inference Methods," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03455978, HAL.
    2. Hofer. Katharina, 2016. "Shirk or Work? On How Legislators React to Monitoring," Economics Working Paper Series 1616, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    3. Maxime Menuet & Patrick Villieu, 2021. "Reputation and the “need for enemies”," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1049-1089, November.
    4. Anqi Li & Lin Hu, 2020. "Electoral Accountability and Selection with Personalized Information Aggregation," Papers 2009.03761, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    5. Boris Kaiser & Christian Schmid, 2016. "Does Physician Dispensing Increase Drug Expenditures? Empirical Evidence from Switzerland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-90, January.
    6. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    7. Wen Xu, 2016. "Estimation of Dynamic Panel Data Models with Stochastic Volatility Using Particle Filters," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-13, October.
    8. Özgür Orhangazi & A. Erinç Yeldan, 2021. "The Re‐making of the Turkish Crisis," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 460-503, May.
    9. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Rosario Crinò & Gino Gancia, 2018. "Firms and Economic Performance: A view from Trade," Working Papers 1034, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Guriev, Sergei & Treisman, Daniel, 2020. "A theory of informational autocracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    11. Ufuk Akcigit & Sina T. Ates & Giammario Impullitti, 2018. "Innovation and Trade Policy in a Globalized World," NBER Working Papers 24543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Gino Gancia & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2015. "Offshoring and Directed Technical Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 84-122, July.
    13. Makoto Shimoji, 2016. "Rationalizable Persuasion," Discussion Papers 16/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. Ivan Balbuzanov, 2019. "Lies and consequences," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1203-1240, December.
    15. Raphael Corbi & Fabio Miessi Sanches, 2022. "Church Competition, Religious Subsidies and the Rise of Evangelicalism: a Dynamic Structural Analysis," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2022_09, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    16. Shirai, Daichi, 2016. "Persistence and Amplification of Financial Frictions," MPRA Paper 72187, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Haiwen Zhou, 2018. "Impact of international trade on unemployment under oligopoly," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 365-379, May.
    18. Benchimol, Jonathan & Ivashchenko, Sergey, 2021. "Switching volatility in a nonlinear open economy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    19. Lefgren, Lars J. & Stoddard, Olga B. & Stovall, John E., 2021. "Rationalizing self-defeating behaviors: Theory and evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    20. Liang, Yan, 2022. "Impact of financial development on outsourcing and aggregate productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; Parliament; Transparency; Parties; Party discipline;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • L88 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:163:y:2018:i:c:p:60-76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.