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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Crossing The Line: Evidence For The Categorization Theory Of Spatial Voting, Mark Pickup, Erik O. Kimbrough, Eline A. De Rooij Oct 2023

Crossing The Line: Evidence For The Categorization Theory Of Spatial Voting, Mark Pickup, Erik O. Kimbrough, Eline A. De Rooij

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Bølstad and Dinas (2017) propose a model of spatial voting, based on social identity theory, that suggests supporting a candidate/policy on the other side of the ideological spectrum has a disutility that is not accounted for by common spatial models. Unfortunately, the data they use cannot speak directly to whether the disutility arises because individuals perceive their ideology as a social identity. We present the results of an experimental study that measures the norm against crossing the ideological spectrum; tests the cost of doing so, controlling for spatial effects; and demonstrates that this cost increases with the salience and strength …


Hybrid U-Net: Semantic Segmentation Of High-Resolution Satellite Images To Detect War Destruction, Shima Nabiee, Matthew Harding, Jonathan Hersh, Nader Bagherzadeh Jul 2022

Hybrid U-Net: Semantic Segmentation Of High-Resolution Satellite Images To Detect War Destruction, Shima Nabiee, Matthew Harding, Jonathan Hersh, Nader Bagherzadeh

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Destruction caused by violent conflicts play a big role in understanding the dynamics and consequences of conflicts, which is now the focus of a large body of ongoing literature in economics and political science. However, existing data on conflict largely come from news or eyewitness reports, which makes it incomplete, potentially unreliable, and biased for ongoing conflicts. Using satellite images and deep learning techniques, we can automatically extract objective information on violent events. To automate this process, we created a dataset of high-resolution satellite images of Syria and manually annotated the destroyed areas pixel-wise. Then, we used this dataset to …


A Network Of Thrones: Kinship And Conflict In Europe, 1495–1918, Seth G. Benzell, Kevin Cooke Jul 2021

A Network Of Thrones: Kinship And Conflict In Europe, 1495–1918, Seth G. Benzell, Kevin Cooke

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We construct a database linking European royal kinship networks, monarchies, and wars to study the effect of family ties on conflict. To establish causality, we exploit decreases in connection caused by apolitical deaths of rulers' mutual relatives. These deaths are associated with substantial increases in the frequency and duration of war. We provide evidence that these deaths affect conflict only through changing the kinship network. Over our period of interest, the percentage of European monarchs with kinship ties increased threefold. Together, these findings help explain the well-documented decrease in European war frequency.


Weakest-Link Attacker-Defender Games With Multiple Attack Technologies, Daniel G. Arce, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson Sep 2012

Weakest-Link Attacker-Defender Games With Multiple Attack Technologies, Daniel G. Arce, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this article, we examine a model of terrorism that focuses on the tradeoffs facing a terrorist organization that has two qualitatively different attack modes at its disposal. The terrorist organization's objective is to successfully attack at least one target. Success for the target government is defined as defending all targets from any and all attacks. In this context, we examine how terrorist entities strategically utilize an efficient but discrete attack technology e.g., suicide attacks when a more conventional mode of attack is available, and the optimal anti-terrorism measures.


Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Comment, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson Jan 2012

Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Comment, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The contest-theoretic literature on the attack and defense of networks of targets focuses primarily on pure-strategy Nash equilibria. Hausken's 2008 European Journal of Operational Research article typifies this approach, and many of the models in this literature either build upon this model or utilize similar techniques. We show that Hausken's characterization of Nash equilibrium is invalid for much of the parameter space examined and provides necessary conditions for his solution to hold. The complete characterization of mixed-strategy equilibria remains an open problem, although there exist solutions in the literature for special prominent cases.


Non-Partisan ‘Get-Out-The-Vote’ Efforts And Policy Outcomes, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson Jan 2011

Non-Partisan ‘Get-Out-The-Vote’ Efforts And Policy Outcomes, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper utilizes a simple model of redistributive politics with voter abstention to analyze the impact of nonpartisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts on policy outcomes. Although such efforts are often promoted on the grounds that they provide the social benefit of increasing participation in the electoral process, we find that they have a meaningful impact on policy outcomes and are an important political influence activity for nonprofit advocacy organizations. In equilibrium, nonpartisan gotv efforts are more likely to arise in those segments of the electorate that are sufficiently small and disenfranchised (as measured by the ex ante voter abstention rate). Among those …


Electoral Poaching And Party Identification, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson Jan 2008

Electoral Poaching And Party Identification, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This article studies electoral competition in a model of redistributive politics with deterministic voting and heterogeneous voter loyalties to political parties. We construct a natural measure of `party strength' based on the sizes and intensities of a party's loyal voter segments and demonstrate how party behavior varies with the two parties' strengths. In equilibrium, parties target or `poach' a strict subset of the opposition party's loyal voters: offering those voters a high expected transfer, while `freezing out' the remainder with a zero transfer. The size of the subset of opposition voters frozen out and, consequently, the level of inequality in …


Rigging The Lobbying Process: An Application Of The All-Pay Auction, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries Jan 1993

Rigging The Lobbying Process: An Application Of The All-Pay Auction, Michael R. Baye, Dan Kovenock, Casper G. De Vries

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In a world where a politician can explicitly auction off a prize to the high bidder, the standard auction literature can be used to analyse political behavior. The justice system, however, precludes politicians from explicitly selling the prize to the highest bidder. Thus politicians cannot let it become public knowledge that they are in the business of selling political favors. An institution has emerged in political markets to overcome this constraint which are termed as lobbying. Lobbyists make implicit payments to the politician through campaign contributions. If these up-front payments were rebated to those failing to receive the prize, it …


Bidding Theory And The Treasury Bill Auction: Does Price Discrimination Increase Bill Prices?, Vernon L. Smith Jan 1966

Bidding Theory And The Treasury Bill Auction: Does Price Discrimination Increase Bill Prices?, Vernon L. Smith

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper is not directed to the question of whether the Treasury should or should not practice in the public sector what the Clayton Act prohibits in the private sector. The paper is concerned exclusively with the theoretical question of whether the Treasury would necessarily receive higher prices by employing price discrimination than it could get by selling the issues at a single price. From a theory of bidding under uncertainty, which seems to apply naturally to the Treasury auction, it will be shown that buyers may be expected to enter lower bids under price discrimination than they would for …