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Preference Identification and Political Participation In PREFERENCE IDENTIFICATION AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN ALTERNATIVE VOTING SYSTEMS by Emilia J. Suggs A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics Middle Tennessee State University May 2021 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Daniel Smith, Chair Dr. Adam Rennhoff Dr. Steven Sprick Schuster ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No research is accomplished as a solidary endeavor. We are the products of many experiences and conflicts of ideas, and require the help of others to navigate the unfamiliar and arrive at our proper destinations. Throughout this process, I have received a great amount of support and assistance, and wish to properly acknowledge those who have helped me along the way. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my committee chair and advisor, Dr. Daniel Smith, for his advice and guidance in developing this research project. Your expertise and support has been instrumental in my development as a researcher and teacher in economics. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Adam Rennhoff and Dr. Steven Sprick Schuster for serving on my committee and assisting me in the development of this project. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Art Carden and Dr. Joy Buchanan for their feedback. My special thanks are extended to the faculty and staff of the Political Economy Research Institute and the Department of Economic and Finance at Middle Tennessee State University. Thank you to all the students who took the time to participate in the experimental sections of my work, and the faculty members who assisted me in finding participants. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, family, and friends for their support and encouragement throughout this process. ii ABSTRACT The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how modifying the structure of voting systems and procedures can identify and change people’s political behavior. By changing the voting rules or election structures faced by individual political agents, we ultimately change the incentive structures that underlie their decision making and should expect changes in political outcomes. The study examines two types of institutional changes and their associated effects on the behavior of political agents. The first study examines the formation of alternative voting rules and their use as a measure of voter preferences. The study defines the rules of a two-stage multivoting system and evaluates the performance of this system against traditional voting mechanism using experimental data gathered from college students. In the second part, the study examines the political entry decisions of political party candidates in state assembly general elections. Two approaches to political entry are presented: the first assumes that the probability of observing a candidate of a specific political party is dependent upon characteristics about a district’s election and demographic characteristics, while the other assumes candidates make election choices based on the expected payoff they receive by participating in elections. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: IDENTIFYING VOTER PREFERENCES THROUGH TWO-STAGE MULTIVOTING ELECTIONS .......................................................................................... 6 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................. 10 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 28 References ..................................................................................................................... 30 Appendix A: Discussion of 2SMV Recommendation 6 .............................................. 33 Appendix B: Discussion of Preference Intensity Coefficient of Variation Classifications ............................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 3: EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF TWO-STAGE MULTIVOTING ELECTIONS: EXPERIMENTS IN THE PREFACE OF THE 2020 PRIMARIES ..................................................................................................................... 39 Description of Experiment and Summary Statistics ..................................................... 41 Preference Expression using 2SMV .............................................................................. 46 Voting Outcomes in 1P1V versus 2SMV ..................................................................... 57 Voting Behavior and Election Outcomes ...................................................................... 68 Comparison of Alternative Voting Systems ................................................................. 76 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 80 References ..................................................................................................................... 82 Appendix A: Survey Experiment Overview and Questions......................................... 85 Appendix B: Normality Test for Dependent Variables in the Study ........................... 87 Appendix C: Institutional Review Board Approval ..................................................... 89 Appendix Table D: 2SMV Candidate Ranks ............................................................... 91 iv CHAPTER 4: POLITICAL ENTRY IN STATE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS: EVIDENCE FROM STATE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS FROM 2016- 2020................................................................................................................................... 92 Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 94 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................. 98 Data ............................................................................................................................. 105 Estimation of Success Probabilities for Political Party-Candidates ............................ 112 Monetary Payoffs and Candidate Entry ...................................................................... 126 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 156 References ................................................................................................................... 158 Appendix A: Election and District Characteristics across Years ............................... 162 Appendix B: Comparison of State Work Expectations, Benefits, and Filing Fees .... 165 Appendix C: Democrat Election Victory Probit Estimates ........................................ 167 Appendix D: Republican Election Victory Probit Estimates ..................................... 169 Appendix E: Independent Election Victory Probit Estimates .................................... 171 Appendix F: Comparison of Estimates by Year......................................................... 173 Appendix G: Political Party Part Time vs. Full Time Election Victory Probit Panel Marginal Effects .......................................................................................................... 175 Appendix H: Additional Specifications of Observed Entry Decisions vs. Predicted Entry Configurations ................................................................................................... 177 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................... 179 References ....................................................................................................................... 182 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Sample Coefficient of Variation Histogram Plot ............................................. 48 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Decisions in a Two-Stage Multivoting (2SMV) Election ................................. 24 Table 2. Election Outcomes under 1P1V and 2SMV System Specifications .................. 26 Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of the Sample .................................................................. 43 Table 4. Frequency and Percentage of Voting Behavior Classifications ......................... 49 Table 5. Summary Statistics of Candidate-Weight CoV Estimates by Political Preference Subgroup ........................................................................................................................... 51 Table 6. Results from Tests for Significant Differences in Candidate-Weight CoV Estimates between Subgroups........................................................................................... 56 Table 7. Summary Statistics of 1P1V Votes and 2SMV Candidate Scores .................... 59 Table 8. Candidate Scores and Election Results under 1P1V and 2SMV Systems ......... 60 Table 9. Subgroup Summary of 1P1V and 2SMV Nominee Choices ............................. 65 Table 10. Behavior Type Subgroup Descriptive Statistics of Transformed 2SMV Candidate Scores ............................................................................................................... 71 Table 11. 1P1V Votes and 2SMV Candidate Scores in the 2020 Democratic Primaries 72 Table 12. Results of Paired Sample Significant Differences Tests in Transformed 2SMV Candidate Score between Behavior Subgroups ...............................................................
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