Publicação
The weber-fechner law and public expenditures impact to the win-margins at parliamentary elections
| Resumo: | This paper discusses the electoral implications of psychological motivation on voting functions. We tested a claim of the Weber-Fechner law as applied to electoral behaviour—specifi cally, that an expanded public sector leads politicians to make more signifi cant, opportunistic distortions of public expenditures than the distortions observed when the public sector is diminished. We employed a system of simultaneous equations to test this hypothesis for cases observed in more than sixty democracies since 1960. We gave a special focus to the cases of Central and Eastern European countries. Our results confi rm the main implications of the Weber-Fechner law. Years in incumbency, running for re-election, higher unemployment and higher infl ation rates tend to generate negative moods, feelings and affects in the electorate; thus, these factors tend to approximate the vote share of the most voted party to the remaining vote share of the challenger political forces. |
|---|---|
| Autores principais: | Mourão, Paulo |
| Assunto: | Voting Central and Eastern European economies Weber-Fechner law |
| Ano: | 2012 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | artigo |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso restrito |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade do Minho |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Resumo: | This paper discusses the electoral implications of psychological motivation on voting functions. We tested a claim of the Weber-Fechner law as applied to electoral behaviour—specifi cally, that an expanded public sector leads politicians to make more signifi cant, opportunistic distortions of public expenditures than the distortions observed when the public sector is diminished. We employed a system of simultaneous equations to test this hypothesis for cases observed in more than sixty democracies since 1960. We gave a special focus to the cases of Central and Eastern European countries. Our results confi rm the main implications of the Weber-Fechner law. Years in incumbency, running for re-election, higher unemployment and higher infl ation rates tend to generate negative moods, feelings and affects in the electorate; thus, these factors tend to approximate the vote share of the most voted party to the remaining vote share of the challenger political forces. |
|---|