Policy Voting Research Articles

Minimum-Latency FEC Design With Delayed Feedback: Mathematical Modeling and Efficient Algorithms

In this paper, we consider the packet-level forward error correction (FEC) code design, without feedback or with delayed feedback, for achieving the minimum end-to-end latency, i.e., the latency between the time when packet is generated at the source and its \emph{in-order delivery} to the application layer of the destination. We first show that the minimum-latency FEC design problem can be modeled as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), and hence the optimal code construction can be obtained by solving the corresponding POMDP. However, solving the POMDP optimally is in general difficult unless the size is very small. To this end, we propose an efficient heuristic algorithm, namely the majority vote policy, for obtaining a high quality approximate solution. We also derive the tight lower and upper bounds of the optimal state values of this POMDP, based on which a more sophisticated D-step search algorithm is implemented for obtaining near-optimal solutions. The simulation results show that the proposed code designs via solving the POMDP, either with the majority vote policy or the D-step search algorithm, strictly outperform the existing schemes, in both cases, without or with only delayed feedback.

Polarização Partidária e Política Externa no Reino Unido pré-Brexit

No artigo, analisamos o comportamento dos partidos britânicos nas votações de política externa da legislatura anterior à aprovação do referendo do Brexit. Por meio de um modelo geral linear, mostramos que as votações sobre temas relacionados à União Europeia possuem baixa propensão à divergência partidária, enquanto as notícias veiculadas à votação, o desemprego e a relevância da imigração para a opinião pública afetam positivamente o grau de divergência entre os partidos políticos britânicos.

The Compleat German Economic Voter: New Pathways in Patrimonial and Positional Economic Voting

Recent studies of economic voting suggest that beyond the traditional valence conception of voters rewarding or punishing incumbent administrations for economic performance, there are patrimonial (assets) and positional (economic policy) dimensions to the economic vote too. To date, investigations of economic voting in Germany have primarily concentrated on the valence model. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 4 component included in the 2013 German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), our paper examines the multifaceted nature of economic voting in Germany. Our analysis reveals there are patrimonial and positional economic dimensions to the vote in Germany, implying that the compleat economic voter is also a German phenomenon. Beyond contributing to studies of German voting behaviour, our paper breaks new ground by unpacking individual heterogeneity associated with patrimonial and positional economic voting. We demonstrate political sophistication moderates to some extent the prevalence of asset motivated and economic policy voting. Patrimonial voting is somewhat more likely among the less politically sophisticated, while positional economic voting is somewhat more probable among highly sophisticated citizens. Our study confirms the multidimensionality of economic voting and also highlights the conditionality of patrimonial and positional economic voting is an individual level phenomenon.

Does Mindful Decision-Making Matter? A Study of Legislators' Decision-Making

The foundation of our society depends on proper legislative leadership, making well-deliberated decisions and tough choices on policy on behalf of its citizens. This presentation explores if mindfulness influences legislative policymaking and legislative effectiveness. It considers the role of gender and mindful decision-making. Gender affects judgment through the style, ethics, and values of legislators and, in turn, the policymaking process. The goal of this presentation is to explore the use of mindfulness by state legislators and whether mindful decision-making improves the quality and effectiveness of legislative decision-making. Additionally, we will examine whether there is a difference in gender of mindful legislative decision-making. This presentation is a qualitative study with 31 state legislators of various backgrounds, tenure, and leadership roles within their party. This research found that mindful legislative decision-making has a significant impact on legislative deliberation and policy votes. Furthermore, we discovered that mindful decision-making increases effectiveness and confidence in the legislators’ policy decisions and that women use mindful decision-making at a higher rate than men.

Policy voting in U.S. House primaries

ABSTRACTThis paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.

On the Meaning of Survey Reports of Roll‐Call “Votes”

AbstractContemporary efforts to evaluate representation often compare survey measures of how citizens say they would vote on legislation to what elected officials do in office. These comparisons generally suggest poor representation. We argue here that this common design is unlikely to effectively evaluate representation because responses to survey questions differ in important aspects from voting in legislatures. Measurement error and construct validity undermine the comparison. Three survey experiments show that providing partisan and nonpartisan information readily available to legislators materially changes respondents' expressed preferences on roll‐call votes. With information, expressed policy positions are both less centrist and more closely matched to legislator behavior in their preferred party. Respondents also appear aware of their own lack of knowledge in evaluating roll‐call policy votes. The treatment effect of information decreases in confidence judging policy in that area. We show similar patterns for respondent opinions on Supreme Court decisions.

Briefing the Canadian Government on Experimental Voter Policy: Lessons Learned

Briefing the Canadian Government on Experimental Voter Policy: Lessons Learned

Comment Letter to the SEC: Proposed New Disclosures for Investment Advisers to Mutual Funds

This submission is in response to Chairman Clayton’s July 30 press release announcing a staff roundtable on the proxy process and calling for submissions from interested parties. It refers in particular to two of the topics under consideration, Voting Process and Shareholder Proposals. According to the Release establishing the Proxy Voting Rule (“Release”), an investment adviser “is a fiduciary that owes each of its clients duties of care and loyalty with respect to all services undertaken on the client’s behalf, including proxy voting.” This was the rationale behind the Proxy Voting Rule requiring investment advisers, including mutual fund advisers, to create and disclose their proxy voting policies and procedures. However, the SEC and its staff have yet to clarify what these fiduciary duties mean for the largest mutual fund advisers now that they control an extraordinary amount of shareholder voting power at many of our largest public companies. This concentration of voting power creates significant value for an adviser if it can be traded for something that the adviser wants in return. For example, an adviser may use its voting power to support the activism of current and potential institutional clients in exchange for the ability to acquire more assets under management. Or, an adviser may use its voting power to support the activism of its own shareholders at the advisor’s portfolio companies in exchange for those shareholders agreeing not to target the adviser itself for such activism. The result is that an adviser has not cast its delegated voting authority “in a manner consistent with the best interest of its client” and has subrogated the “client interests to its own,” a breach in its fiduciary duties to its mutual fund clients and its shareholders. The Commission should provide clarification that mutual fund advisers must disclose, consistent with their fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of their mutual fund clients and their shareholders, how they will deal with these new conflicts in their voting policies. In addition, shareholder proposals are a prime area where this opportunistic use of an adviser’s voting power may be in play. Therefore, the adviser’s voting policy must also explain how voting on these proposals are linked to maximizing shareholder value. Specifically, this submission requests the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission”), in whatever form it deems appropriate, to clarify that investment advisers to mutual funds must disclose, under the Proxy Vote Rule, their policies and procedures: to avoid using their voting power at public companies opportunistically to obtain new business from activists such as public pension funds and investment funds associated with labor unions; and to eliminate pressures to support the activism of its own shareholders at its portfolio companies; and to identify an actual link between support for a shareholder proposal under Rule 14a-8 and the enhancement of shareholder value before voting in favor of any such proposal.

Revisiting the viability to allow dual-class share structure companies to list in the financial market of Hong Kong

The request of Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, to allow a self-selected group of its past and present management known as the ‘partners’ the right to nominate a majority of the directors in its negotiation with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2013 reignited a new round of debate over the one share, one vote policy, which has survived for three decades in Hong Kong. Alibaba’s IPO application to list on the HKEx was eventually rejected which ultimately led to the company’s decision to list on the New York Stock Exchange. In late 2017, the debate on whether companies with dual-class share (DCS) structure should be allowed to list in Hong Kong re-emerged as the HKEx has announced that it would amend its listing rules to enable companies with DCS structure to list on its exchange, subject to certain safeguards and restrictions. This article examines what measures Hong Kong could adopt to allow companies with DCS structure to list on its exchange despite legal and institutional shortcomings of its financial market. In doing so, it will also make reference to other major financial markets in the world and examine how other jurisdictions have handled the issue of DCS structure companies.

Structured-Induced Deference or Equal and Coordinate Actor: Congressional Influence on American Foreign Policy

Perhaps no separation of powers issue receives as much scholarly attention as the near monopoly modern presidents exert over foreign policy. Yet, despite an extensive literature on the subject, scholars have drawn different conclusions as to the causes of this change, finding that lawmakers either defer to the president or are equal and coordinate actors on foreign policy. Using the separation of powers as a guide, I attempt to rectify these differences and demonstrate instances in the roll call record where examples of both explanations are most evident. Recovering ideal point estimates between the 87th and 112th Congress on votes highlighting competing governmental objectives, findings show that the chamber median frequently shifts toward the president on foreign policy votes in the final passage stage and during the treaty process. However, evidence also shows Congress is less likely to defer to the president on domestic legislation and appropriations.

Between Cash, Deposit and Bitcoin: Would We Like a Central Bank Digital Currency? Money Demand and Experimental Economics

The aim of this paper is to analyse the demand of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Using a financial portfolio approach and assuming that individual preferences and policy votes are consistent, we identify the drivers of the political consensus in favour or against such as new currency. Given three different properties of a currency – where the first two are the standard functions of medium of exchange and store of value and the third one is the less explored function of store of information – and three different existing moneys – paper currency, banking currency and cryptocurrency – if the individuals are rational but at the same time can be affected by behavioural biases – loss aversion - three different groups of individuals – respectively lovers, neutrals and haters – emerge respect to the CBDC option. Given the alternative opportunity costs of the different currencies, the CBDC issuing is more likely to occur the more the individuals likes to use a legal tender, and/or are indifferent respect to anonymity; at the same time, the probability of the CBDC introduction increases if a return can be paid on it, and/or its implementation can guarantee at least the counterparty anonymity.

What Drives Opposition to Economic Reforms? The Role of Ex Ante Uncertainty

The theoretical literature on support for pro-market economic reforms identifies uncertainty about the future consequences of reform as an important determinant of opposition to pro-market policies. However, this literature does not rigorously test the role of uncertainty on support for pro-market reforms. This paper addresses this gap by testing the role of uncertainty using a new geocoded dataset of state-owned enterprises in India and a difference-in-differences strategy. I find that voters who are threatened with privatization but do not experience the policy vote against the privatizing party whereas voters that actually experience privatization vote in favor of the privatizing party. These results provide strong empirical support for the role of uncertainty to explain opposition to economic reform programs.

Beyond Bitcoin and Cash: Do We Would Like a Central Bank Digital Currency? A Financial and Political Economics Approach

The aim of this paper is to offer a theoretical primer in order to analyse the demand of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Using a financial portfolio approach and assuming that individual preferences and policy votes are consistent, we identify the drivers of the political consensus in favour or against such as new currency. Given three different properties of a currency – where the first two are the standard functions of medium of exchange and store of value and the third one is the less explored function of store of information – and three different existing moneys – paper currency, banking currency and cryptocurrency – if the individuals are rational but at the same time can be affected by behavioural biases – loss aversion – three different groups of individuals – respectively lovers, neutrals and haters – emerge respect to the CBDC option. Given the alternative opportunity costs of the different currencies, the CBDC issuing is more likely to occur the more the individuals likes to use a legal tender, and/or are indifferent respect to anonymity; at the same time, the probability of the CBDC introduction increases if a return can be paid on it, and/or its implementation can guarantee at least the counterparty anonymity.

Party unity in federal disunity: determinants of decentralised policy-seeking in Switzerland

Federalism and decentralisation offer political parties the opportunity to tailor their policy-seeking behaviour to different regional electorates. These electorates often possess different political preferences. However, the regional branches of nationwide parties must be careful not to dilute or even betray the core values of their party, for equally often they remain dependent on central support. This article studies the ensuing tension between regional deviations from national unity by analysing all vote recommendations of the four major Swiss parties on all 251 national referendums held between 1987 and 2015. Vote recommendations constitute an important guidance for voters. Analytically, the article focuses on the conditions of cantonal deviations from federal recommendations as a proxy for decentralised policy-seeking. It finds that ideological (socialism), temporal, vote-specific (distance to next election) as well as vote- and canton-specific factors (regional turnout and contestation) all influence party unity, with some effects varying by policy area and vote type.

Voter policy emphasis and party electoral manifestos: Assessing parties’ reflections of voter policy shifts in the 2010 and 2013 Czech parliamentary elections

The party manifesto is a crucial document identifying a party’s ideological position. Measuring the response of political party manifestos to both the mean voter as well as party constituency positions remains extensively difficult given the lack of available data, but also the complex political realities and factors which the parties must take into consideration e.g. the economy, globalization, the demands of the market, and pressure from rival parties. In spite of these complexities, this article analyses the extent to which political parties reflect voter policy emphasis in their political manifestos. Through the content analysis of electoral manifestos the article determines the policy positions of Czech political parties during the 2010 and 2013 elections to the Lower House of the Parliament. Identifying also key voter policy preferences the article looks into the possible congruence between shifts in voter emphasis and changes in party electoral manifestos. Employing an approach not yet fully applied in academic research, the article examines shifts within ideological space, while focusing also on specific key policy areas. It concludes that in the short term – from the 2010 to 2013 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic - political parties responded to shifts in voter policy emphasis in just one quarter of cases. The responsiveness differed significantly from one party to another.

The electoral consequences of austerity: economic policy voting in Europe in times of crisis

Voters typically observe macroeconomic outcomes in order to evaluate government performance. However, during crises, when the clarity of economic responsibility is poor and the economy is in recession, citizens need additional sources of information in order to form a reasoned opinion. Government policy response is one such source. This study shows on a sample of 24 European nations from 2004, 2009 and 2014 that in the post-crisis period, economic policies have emerged as one of the key predictors of vote choice, with government decisions to pursue fiscal austerity leading to significantly lower levels of incumbent support. Furthermore, the paper tests the possibility that the effect of austerity is conditioned by the clarity of responsibility. In multilevel systems, where policies are externally imposed, voters could be expected to hold incumbents less accountable for unpopular measures. The analysis, however, provides no evidence that policy effects depend on the extent to which national governments share policy responsibilities with supranational and intergovernmental institutions. Accountability for policy actions is primarily attributed at the domestic level as voters are able to identify the decisional role of national governments.

Political Parties and MPs’ Morality Policy Voting Behaviour: Evidence from Germany

This article investigates the impact of party membership on MPs’ morality policy voting behaviour, going beyond the common dichotomy of left and right parties and differentiating the preferences of other party families (e.g. Christian democrats, Liberals and Greens) regarding abortion, stem-cell research and euthanasia. We argue that parties generally face a ‘self-determination vs. protection of life’ trade-off. In the case of embryo research, however, a party’s economic preferences and its position towards the freedom of research come into play, too. Exploring eight free votes in Germany after 1990, our analysis identifies party membership as the key determinant, supporting the claim that parties are groups of people who share common values. Moreover, we corroborate our subfield-specific argument, as regarding stem-cell research, Christian democrats vote less conservative and the liberal position of Greens even reverses.

Distinguishing welfare state reform and income redistribution. A two-dimensional approach to the Dutch voter space on economic issues.

There is growing evidence that voter and party positions on economic items do not conform to a left–right dimension. This article proposes that in Northern Eurozone states voter policy positions on economic issues are characterized by two dimensions: A redistribution dimension that consists out of views on income equality and a reform dimension that divides those who favour reform of the welfare state to ensure its long-term sustainability and those who oppose such reforms because they would hurt those who need the welfare state now. It examines to what extent voters positions on economic issues conform this two-dimensional pattern, employing the 2012 Dutch Election Survey; to what extent positions on these dimensions reflects voters’ attitudes on other issues and demographic characteristics; and to what extent these two dimensions help to understand voting behaviour. It shows that indeed a multidimensional approach to economic issues is justified; that voters who oppose reforms are characterized by higher levels of Euroscepticism; and that this reform dimension helps to understand voting behaviour, in particular preferences for the socialist, social-democratic and social-liberal party.

Partisan polarization and US foreign policy: Is the centre dead or holding?

Scholars generally agree that most congressional decision-making behaviour has become characterized by partisan polarization. One area to which this consensus does not extend, however, is decision-making on foreign and national security issues. While a majority of scholars believe congressional foreign policy voting is now polarized, others insist that bipartisanship remains the norm. Examining roll-call votes in the House of Representatives from 1970 to 2012, this paper brings three new elements to bear on the dispute. Using a more comprehensive range of indicators, we re-examine the longitudinal data previously presented by scholars; we add an analysis of the roll-call data for the 2004–2013 period, and we utilize a static measure of polarization. Our analysis of the data reveals a cyclical trend of increasing and decreasing polarization and we conclude that it is too simplistic to characterize congressional voting on foreign and national security issues since 1970 as either partisan or bipartisan.

A new approach for multi-view gait recognition on unconstrained paths

Direction changes cause difficulties for most of the gait recognition systems, due to appearance changes. We propose a new approach for multi-view gait recognition, which focuses on recognizing people walking on unconstrained (curved and straight) paths. To this effect, we present a new rotation invariant gait descriptor which is based on 3D angular analysis of the movement of the subject. Our method does not require the sequence to be split into gait cycles, and is able to provide a response before processing the whole sequence. A Support Vector Machine is used for classifying, and a sliding temporal window with majority vote policy is used to reinforce the classification results. The proposed approach has been experimentally validated on “AVA Multi-View Dataset” and “Kyushu University 4D Gait Database” and compared with related state-of-art work. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in the problem of gait recognition on unconstrained paths.