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"Suffrage Rights" published on by Oxford University Press.

Recent studies of American politics evidence that political polarization of both the electorate and the political elite have moved 'almost in tandem for the past half century' (McCarty et al., 2003, p.2), and that party polarization has steadily increased since the 1970s. On the other hand, the empirical literature on party platforms and implemented policies has consistently found an imperfect but nonnegligible correlation between electoral platforms and governmental policies: while platforms tend to be polarized, policies are moderate or centrist. However, existing theoretical models of political competition are not manifestly compatible with these observations. In this paper, we distinguish between electoral platforms and implemented policies by incorporating a non-trivial policy-setting process. It follows that voters may care not only about the implemented policy but also about the platform they support with their vote. We find that while parties tend to polarize their positions, the risk of alienating their constituency prevents them from radicalizing. The analysis evidences that the distribution of the electorate, and not only the (expected) location of a pivotal voter, matters in determining policies. Our results are consistent with the observation of polarized platforms and moderate policies, and the alienation and indifference components of abstention.

This paper proposes an argument that explains incumbency advantage with-out recurring to the collective irresponsibility of legislatures. For that purpose, we exploit the informational value of incumbency: incumbency confers voters information about governing politicians not available from challengers. Because there are many reasons for high reelection rates diferent from incumbency status, we propose a measure of incumbency advantage that improves the use of pure reelection success. We also study the relationship between incumbency advantage and ideological and selection biases. An important implication of our analysis is that the literature linking incumbency and legislature irresponsibility most likely provides an overestimation of the latter.

We present an argument for changes in the franchise in which an elite split along economic interests use the suffrage to influence implemented policies. Through the influence of these policies on the character of industrialization, we analyze the effects of franchise changes on economic growth. We identify in the social structure of society an explanation for the connection between enfranchisement and growth: When (1) there exist an economic conflict among the elite, (2) landed classes are not politically strong, and (3) there exists a critical mass of industrial workers, we observe both growth and democratization. The lack of conditions (1) or (2) resolves in stagnant autocracies while the absence of condition (3) drives growth-deterring democratic expansions. We provide historical support for our argument by analyzing the experience of 11 countries.

This paper presents a model of electoral competition focusing on the formation of the public agenda. An incumbent government and a challenger party in opposition compete in elections by choosing the issues that will key out their campaigns. Giving salience to an issue implies proposing an innovative policy proposal, alternative to the status-quo. Parties trade off the issues with high salience in voters' concerns and those with broad agreement on some alternative policy proposal. Each party expects a higher probability of victory if the issue it chooses becomes salient in the voters' decision. But remarkably, the issues which are considered the most important ones by a majority of voters may not be given salience during the electoral campaign. An incumbent government may survive in spite of its bad policy performance if there is no sufficiently broad agreement on a policy alternative.We illustrate the analytical potential of the model with the case of the United States presidential election in 2004.

21 páginas, 5 figuras.-- Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. ; This paper presents a model of electoral competition focusing on the formation of the public agenda. An incumbent government and a challenger party in opposition compete in elections by choosing the issues that will key out their campaigns. Giving salience to an issue implies proposing an innovative policy proposal, alternative to the status-quo. Parties trade off the issues with high salience in voters' concerns and those with broad agreement on some alternative policy proposal. Each party expects a higher probability of victory if the issue it chooses becomes salient in the voters' decision. But remarkably, the issues which are considered the most important ones by a majority of voters may not be given salience during the electoral campaign. An incumbent government may survive in spite of its bad policy performance if there is no sufficiently broad agreement on a policy alternative. We illustrate the analytical potential of the model with the case of the United States presidential election in 2004. © 2011 The Author(s). ; J. M. Colomer acknowledges the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ2006-10974). H. Llavador acknowledges the support of the Barcelona GSE, of the Government of Catalonia, and of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Innovation (SEJ2006-09993/ECO, SEJ2006-10974 and ECO2009-08820). ; Peer Reviewed

RESUMEN. ¿Cómo debería trazarse el mapa óptimo de distribución de la ayuda internacional? ¿De manera que contribuya a maximizar la reducción de la pobreza global, o tratando de igualar las oportunidades de todos los países de reducir la pobreza? Este artículo profundiza en el debate "normativo" sobre la asignación geográfica de la ayuda y propone escenarios alternativos de distribución para una región concreta del mundo en desarrollo: América Latina y el Caribe. Se especifican dos modelos distributivos contrapuestos, uno basado en el paradigma utilitarista (que maximiza la reducción de la pobreza regional hasta el año 2015) y otro basado en el paradigma de la igualdad de oportunidades (que iguala las oportunidades de los países socios de reducir la pobreza). Finalmente, discutimos las implicaciones de uno y otro mapa, y defendemos la necesidad de definir un mapa estratégico de asignación para América Latina y el Caribe realmente eficiente y equitativo, acorde al escenario regional de dispares ritmos de reducción de la pobreza, oportunidades de desarrollo y esfuerzos políticos de reforma. ; ABSTRACT. How should we draw the optimal map for the allocation of international aid? Should it maximize global poverty reduction, or try to equalize opportunities among recipient countries to reduce poverty? This article shall look into the "normative" debate on the geographical allocation of aid, and propose alternative distributional schemes for a particular developing region: Latin America and the Caribbean. We specify two different allocation models, the first one based on the utilitarian approach (which maximizes the regional poverty reduction for 2015) and the second one based on the equal opportunity approach (which equalizes opportunities to reduce poverty among countries). Finally, we discuss the implications of both maps, and argue in favour of the need to define a strategic allocation map for Latin America and the Caribbean that is truly efficient and fair, according to the regional disparities in terms of the paces in poverty reduction, the development opportunities and the political efforts of reform.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Sustainability and Discounted Utilitarianism -- Chapter 1 Appendix: The Ramsey Problem -- 2. An Introductory Model with Education and Skilled Labor -- Chapter 2 Appendix: Proofs -- 3. Sustainability for a Warming World -- Chapter 3 Appendix: Proofs -- 4. The "Climate-Change Economics" Literature: Nordhaus and Stern -- 5. Sustainability in a Warming, Two-Region World -- Chapter 5 Appendix: Formal Details -- 6. Modeling Catastrophes: Two Extensions -- Chapter 6 Appendix: Proofs and Calibration -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: Calibration -- Appendix B: Mathematica Code -- References -- Index.