Suchergebnisse

Intro -- ACCIDENTS: RISK FACTORS, HEALTH OUTCOMES AND SAFETY MEASURES -- ACCIDENTS: RISK FACTORS, HEALTH OUTCOMES AND SAFETY MEASURES -- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Chapter 1: PROMOTING SAFE TRANSIT: ANALYZING BUS ACCIDENT PATTERNS -- ABSTRACT -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- 2. DATA -- 3. METHODOLOGY -- 4. RESULTS -- DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 2: ELDERLY PEDESTRIANS IN DENSE URBAN AREAS: CASE STUDY OF PARIS -- ABSTRACT -- 1. CONTEXT -- 2. METHODOLOGY -- 2.1. Study of the Pedestrian Accident Rate in Paris -- 2.2. Studies of Accidents Involving Elderly Pedestrians in Paris -- 2.3. Study of How Elderly Pedestrians in Paris Perceive Risk -- 2.4. Study of Elderly Pedestrian Mobility in Paris -- 3. RESULTS -- 3.1. Being an Elderly Pedestrian in Paris: Real Risk -- 3.2. Being an Elderly Pedestrian in Paris: Perceived Risk -- 3.3. Being an Elderly Pedestrian in Paris: Needs and Difficulties -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 3: QUANTIFYING THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS ON ACCIDENT AND INJURIES RISK: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN MOTORCYCLISTS AND CAR DRIVERS -- ABSTRACT -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- 2. METHOD -- 2.1. Sample -- 2.2. Data Analysis -- 3. RESULTS -- 3.1. Odds Ratio for All Accidents -- 3.2. Odds Ratio for Accidents with Personal Injury -- DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 4: VERY SERIOUSLY INJURED:IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION OF ROAD ACCIDENT CHARACTERISTICS AND MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES IN GERMANY -- ABSTRACT -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- 1.1. Medical Definition of Injury Severity -- 2. STUDIES -- 2.1. Annual Number of Very Seriously Injured Road Casualties -- 2.2. Annual trend of Very Seriously Injured Road Casualties -- 2.3. Transport Modes and Injury Patterns -- CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK -- REFERENCES.

The Condorcet Jury Theorem and subsequent literature establish the feasibility of information aggregation in a common-value environment with exogenous policy options: a large electorate of imperfectly informed voters almost always selects the correct policy option. Rather than directly voting for policies, citizens in modern representative democracies elect candidates who make strategic policy commitments. We show that intermediation by candidates sometimes improves policy choices and sometimes impedes information aggregation. Somewhat paradoxically, the possibility of information aggregation by voters encourages strategic conformism by candidates. Correlated information or partisan biases among voters can mitigate the political failure we un- cover. We also discuss possible institutional solutions.

AbstractWe propose a theory of democratic backsliding where citizens' retrospective assessment of an incumbent politician depends on expectations that are endogenous to the incumbent's behaviour. We show that democratic backsliding can occur even when most citizens and most politicians intrinsically value democracy. By challenging norms of democracy, an incumbent can lower citizens' expectations; by not doubling down on this challenge, he can then beat this lowered standard. As a result, gradual backsliding can actually enhance an incumbent's popular support not despite but because of citizens' opposition to backsliding. This mechanism can only arise when citizens are uncertain enough about incumbents' preferences (e.g. owing to programmatically weak parties). Mass polarization, instead, can reduce the occurrence of backsliding while simultaneously increasing its severity.

AbstractWe develop a new framework to study legislative representation in list proportional representation (PR) systems. Our model studies a legislator's incentives to balance the competing interests of party leaders and local voters under a variety of list PR systems. We consider open and closed lists, as well as flexible lists—in which both rank assignments and preference votes determine the order in which seats are filled. We find that more flexibility can worsen local representation. List flexibility also acts as a key mediator of the effect of voter partisanship on party cohesion. And, our analysis reveals that higher district magnitude encourages representatives to toe the party line under all ballot systems.

Understanding voter preferences in proportional representation (PR) systems is an essential first step towards understanding candidate selection and behavior. We unearth conceptual challenges of constructing a theory of sincere voting in PR elections. Using a rich but tractable framework, we propose a foundational theory of voting behavior in list PR systems. We show how voters' expectations about the election outcome shape the relative salience of different candidates on a party's ballot and ultimately determine their induced preferences over a party's list. Our framework shows how voters allocate their attention across different ranks on a party's ballot, and how this depends on each party's relative popularity.

The 2010 US Supreme Court's decision on Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission lifted restrictions on the funding by unions and corporations of groups engaging in independent political advertising (outside spending). Many have criticized the majority opinion's premise that outside spending cannot corrupt or distort the electoral process. Fewer have examined the implications of this decision under the Court's assumptions. Using a game-theoretic model of electoral competition, we show that informative outside spending by a group whose policy preferences are partially aligned with the electorate may reduce voter welfare. This negative effect is more likely when policy information is highly valuable for the electorate or congruence between the group and voters is high. We further show that the regulatory environment produced by the Court's decision is always suboptimal: the electorate would be better off if either groups were allowed to coordinated with candidates or if outside spending was banned altogether.

Citizen initiatives and referendums play an important role in modern democracies, from treaty ratifications in the European Union to gay marriage in California, to the control of foreign workers in Switzerland. Departing from the classic opposition between direct and representative democracy, we study the equilibrium effects of direct democracy institutions on the incentives and selection of elected officials. We find that facilitating direct democracy induces a negative spiral on politicians' role and contribution to society, which may dominate any direct benefit. The theory offers predictions on reelection probabilities and politicians' performance consistent with recent evidence from the US states.

The increasing cost of political campaigns and its impact on the electoral process are issues of paramount importance in modern democracies. We propose a theory of electoral accountability in which candidates choose whether or not to commit to constituency service and whether or not to pay a campaign cost to advertise their platform. A higher campaign cost decreases voter welfare when partisan imbalance is low. However, when partisan imbalance is high, a higher campaign cost is associated with a higher expected level of constituency service. More costly campaigns can thus have a rebalancing effect that improves electoral accountability. We discuss the implications of our findings for campaign finance regulation and present empirical evidence consistent with our key predictions.