14PE01 2014 SUMMER SCHOOL
The Economic Analysis of Electoral Politics Reading List
Profs. Patricia Funk and Giacomo Ponzetto
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Topic 1: Preference Aggregation through Voting (3 hours) 
Textbook: Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini. 2000. Political Economics: Explaining Economic
Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
1.1 Majority Rule: The Median Voter

Persson and Tabellini § 2.1-2.2, 3.1-3.3, and 6.1

Gerber, Elisabeth R., and Jeffrey B. Lewis. 2004. Beyond the Median: Voter Preferences, District
Heterogeneity, and Political Representation, Journal of Political Economy 112 (6): 1364-1383.
1.2 Probabilistic Voting

Persson and Tabellini § 2.3, 3.4, 7.1, and 7.4

Strömberg, David. 2008. How the Electoral College Influences Campaigns and Policy: The
Probability of Being Florida, American Economic Review 98 (3): 769-807.

Larcinese, Valentino, James M. Snyder, and Cecilia Testa. 2013. Testing Models of Distributive
Politics Using Exit Polls to Measure Voter Preferences and Partisanship, British Journal of Political
Science 43 (4): 845-875.
1.3 Heterogeneous Voter Information

Strömberg, David. 2004. Radio's Impact on Public Spending, Quarterly Journal of Economics 119
(1): 189-221.

Glaeser, Edward L., Jesse M. Shapiro, and Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto. 2005. Strategic Extremism:
Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Values, Quarterly Journal of Economics 120
(4): 1283-1330.

Ponzetto, Giacomo A. M. 2011. Heteregeneous Information and Trade Policy. CEPR Discussion
Paper No. 8726.
The Economic Analysis of Electoral Politics
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14PE01 2014 SUMMER SCHOOL
The Economic Analysis of Electoral Politics Reading List
Topic 2: Voter Turnout (2 hours) 2.1 Voter Rationality and Incentives to Vote

Grossman, Gene M., and Elhanan Helpman. 2001. Special Interest Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press. § 3.1

Coate, Stephen, and Michael Conlin. 2004. A Group Rule-Utilitarian Approach to Voter Turnout:
Theory and Evidence, American Economic Review 94 (5): 1476-1504.

Feddersen, Timothy, and Alvaro Sandroni. 2006. A Theory of Participation in Elections, American
Economic Review 96 (4): 1271-1282.

Coate, Stephen, Michael Conlin, and Andrea Moro. 2008. The Performance of Pivotal-Voter
Models in Small-Scale Elections: Evidence from Texas Liquor Referenda, Journal of Public
Economics 92 (3-4): 582-596.
2.2 Voting Laws and Voter Turnout

Funk, Patricia. 2010. Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Voting
System. Journal of the European Economic Association 8(5): 1077-1103.

Fujiwara, Thomas. 2012. Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health:
Evidence
from
Brazil.
Working
paper,
Princeton
University.
[http://www.princeton.edu/~fujiwara/papers/elecvote_site.pdf]

Leon, Gianmarco. 2012. Turnout, Political Preferences and Information: Experimental Evidence
from Peru. Working paper, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Topic 3: Franchise Extensions (1 hour) 
Miller, Grant. 2008. Women’s Suffrage, Political Responsiveness, and Child Survival in American
History. Quarterly Journal of Economics 123(3): 1287-1327.

Naidu, Suresh. 2012. Suffrage, Schooling, and Sorting in the Post-Bellum U.S. South. NBER
Working Paper No. 18129

Husted, Thomas, and Lawrence Kenny. 1997. The Effect of the Expansion of the Voting Franchise
on the Size of Government. Journal of Political Economy 105(1): 54-81.
The Economic Analysis of Electoral Politics
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14PE01 2014 SUMMER SCHOOL
The Economic Analysis of Electoral Politics Reading List
Topic 4: Affirmative Action in Politics (1 hour)

Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra, and Esther Duflo. 2004. Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a
Randomized Policy Experiment in India. Econometrica 72(5): 1409-1443.

Pande, Rohini. 2003. Can Mandated Political Representation provide disadvantaged minorities
influence ? Theory and Evidence from India. American Economic Review,93(4): 1132-1151.

Casas, Pablo, and Saiz, Albert. 2012. Women and Power: Unwilling, Ineffective, or Held Back.
Working paper, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Topic 5: Direct Democracy (2 hours)

Funk, Patricia, and Christina Gathmann. 2011. Does Direct Democracy Reduce the Size of
Government? New Evidence from Historical Data, 1890-2000. Economic Journal 121: 1252-1280.

Matsusaka, John G. 1995. Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years.
Journal of Political Economy 103(3): 587–623.

Tyrefors Hinnerich, Bjoern, and Per Pettersson-Lidbom. 2013. Democracy, Redistribution, and
Political Participation: Evidence from Sweden 1919-1938. Econometrica, forthcoming.

Funk, Patricia, and Stephan Litschig. 2013. Policy Choices in Assembly vs. Representative
Democracies: Evidence from Swiss Communes. Working paper, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Matsusaka, John G. 2005. Direct Democracy Works. Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(2): 185206.
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