Choosing Electoral Rules: Theory and Evidence from US Cities

Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina and Francesco Trebbi

No 11236, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper studies the choice of electoral rules, in particular, the question of minority representation. Majorities tend to disenfranchise minorities through strategic manipulation of electoral rules. With the aim of explaining changes in electoral rules adopted by US cities (particularly in the South), we show why majorities tend to adopt "winner-take-all" city-wide rules (at-large elections) in response to an increase in the size of the minority when the minority they are facing is relatively small. In this case, for the majority it is more effective to leverage on its sheer size instead of risking to concede representation to voters from minority-elected districts. However, as the minority becomes larger (closer to a fifty-fifty split), the possibility of losing the whole city induces the majority to prefer minority votes to be confined in minority-packed districts. Single-member district rules serve this purpose. We show empirical results consistent with these implications of the model.

Date: 2005-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-geo, nep-pbe, nep-pol, nep-reg and nep-ure
Note: PE POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Aghion, Philippe, Alberto Alesina, and Francesco Trebbi. "Electoral Rules and Minority Representation in U.S. Cities." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, 1 (February 2008): 325-357.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11236.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Choosing Electoral rules: Theory and Evidence from US Cities (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11236

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11236

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().