Rafael Hortala-Vallve
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4371074 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Rafael Hortala-Vallve |
| NOMBRES | Rafael |
| APELLIDO | Hortala-Vallve |
| FIRMA | HORTALA-VALLVE R |
| AFILIACIONES | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 13 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 103 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 13 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2010 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
What explains trust in institutions? Multi-disciplinary evidence from an international survey
In many countries, trust in institutions has eroded, undermining civic engagement, social cohesion, and political stability. This study analyzes the determinants of trust in government, civil servants, the judicial system, and the police, drawing on representative samples from six OECD countries (Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) between 2017 and early 2020. It employs survey data, experimental methods, a…
Pre-electoral coalitions and the distribution of political power
Pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) may increase parties’ chances of winning an election, but they may also distort electoral results and policies away from citizens’ preferences. To shed light on how PECs shape post-electoral power distribution, we study the causes and consequences of PECs in Finland where elections use an open-list proportional representation system, and parties may form joint lists. We present descriptive evidence showing that PEC…
The determinants of trust
Trust is key for economic and social development. But why do we trust others? We study the motives behind trust in strangers using an experimental trust game played by 7236 participants, in six samples representative of the general populations of Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the UK and the USA. We examine the broadest range of potential determinants of trustor sending to date, including risk tolerance, preferences for redistribution, and co…
Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout
How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’ degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting , conformist voters have an added incentive to ‘follow the pack’ and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a…
Electoral Competition, Control and Learning
This article explores an agency model in which voters learn about both an incumbent and an opponent. They observe the incumbent’s policy record and update their beliefs about his opponent via a campaign. Although the former is relatively more informative, it can be costly for the voter to learn about the incumbent from her policy record. This is because policy reforms, which allow a voter to learn an incumbent’s ability, are risky and can leave t…
The Effects of District Magnitude on Voting Behavior
Is there more sincere voting in multi-member districts than in single-member districts? Existing research on this question is inconclusive, at least in part because it is difficult with observational data to isolate the effect of district magnitude on voting behavior independently from voters' preferences or the number of parties. Hence, we investigate this issue in a laboratory experiment, where we vary district magnitude while keeping the distr…
The Perverse Consequences of Policy Restrictions in the Presence of Asymmetric Information
Institutions have the power to limit a government’s policy options. Policy restrictions are often used as solutions to coordination failures or time inconsistency problems. However, policy constraints can have significant drawbacks and these disadvantages have, to date, been overlooked in the literature. When institutional constraints tie a government’s hands, citizens will have less incentive to become informed about politics and participate in …
Collusion, Blackmail and Whistle-Blowing
Whistle-blowing is usually regarded as a way to identify abuse and wrongdoing on the part of governments and corporations. In this paper we show how. at a micro level, whistle-blowing can be used as a designer tool to prevent opportunistic behavior, that takes the form of collusion or blackmail, on the part of members of a simple hierarchical structure. We focus on a three-layered principal-supervisor-agent structure and show how the principal ca…
Primaries
Qualitative voting
Can we devise mechanisms that allow voters to express the intensity of their preferences when monetary transfers are forbidden? Can minorities be decisive over those issues they feel very strongly about? As opposed to the usual voting system (one person – one decision – one vote), we propose a voting system where each agent is endowed with a fixed number of votes that can be distributed freely among a set of issues that need to be approved or dis…
Generous Legislators? A Description of Vote Trading Agreements
Legislators trade influence to attain the approval of their most preferred bills. A classic example can be found in pork barrel politics with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, in which logrolling agreements can load costs onto legislators excluded from winning coalitions. I model the bargaining amongst legislators as a repeated game and show that the outcome depends on the voters’ relative valuations toward each bill. Most interestingly, I…
The Three As of Government Formation
How does the Prime Minister organize her government so that she can implement her policy agenda? In our model, a Prime Minister appoints individuals to her cabinet, allocates their portfolios, and assigns their policy tasks—that is, she decides the relevant jurisdiction of departments and the type of proposals a minister can make. Upon appointment, ministers obtain expertise on policies specific to their jurisdiction and strategically communicate…
Internalizing Team Production Externalities through Delegation
We show that in situations of team production, the associated externality between workers can be partially internalized via the delegation of authority of contracting rights, thus improving the overall efficiency of organizations. A delegated structure provides further incentives to individuals in higher tiers of the hierarchy because it makes them residual claimants. Our model sheds light on recent debates about the organization of the British p…
The Three As of Government Formation
How does the Prime Minister organize her government so that she can implement her policy agenda? In our model, a Prime Minister appoints individuals to her cabinet, allocates their portfolios, and assigns their policy tasks—that is, she decides the relevant jurisdiction of departments and the type of proposals a minister can make. Upon appointment, ministers obtain expertise on policies specific to their jurisdiction and strategically communicate…
The Effects of District Magnitude on Voting Behavior
Is there more sincere voting in multi-member districts than in single-member districts? Existing research on this question is inconclusive, at least in part because it is difficult with observational data to isolate the effect of district magnitude on voting behavior independently from voters' preferences or the number of parties. Hence, we investigate this issue in a laboratory experiment, where we vary district magnitude while keeping the distr…
Primaries
Electoral Competition, Control and Learning
This article explores an agency model in which voters learn about both an incumbent and an opponent. They observe the incumbent’s policy record and update their beliefs about his opponent via a campaign. Although the former is relatively more informative, it can be costly for the voter to learn about the incumbent from her policy record. This is because policy reforms, which allow a voter to learn an incumbent’s ability, are risky and can leave t…
Qualitative voting
Can we devise mechanisms that allow voters to express the intensity of their preferences when monetary transfers are forbidden? Can minorities be decisive over those issues they feel very strongly about? As opposed to the usual voting system (one person – one decision – one vote), we propose a voting system where each agent is endowed with a fixed number of votes that can be distributed freely among a set of issues that need to be approved or dis…
Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout
How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’ degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting , conformist voters have an added incentive to ‘follow the pack’ and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a…
The Perverse Consequences of Policy Restrictions in the Presence of Asymmetric Information
Institutions have the power to limit a government’s policy options. Policy restrictions are often used as solutions to coordination failures or time inconsistency problems. However, policy constraints can have significant drawbacks and these disadvantages have, to date, been overlooked in the literature. When institutional constraints tie a government’s hands, citizens will have less incentive to become informed about politics and participate in …
Pre-electoral coalitions and the distribution of political power
Pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) may increase parties’ chances of winning an election, but they may also distort electoral results and policies away from citizens’ preferences. To shed light on how PECs shape post-electoral power distribution, we study the causes and consequences of PECs in Finland where elections use an open-list proportional representation system, and parties may form joint lists. We present descriptive evidence showing that PEC…
Generous Legislators? A Description of Vote Trading Agreements
Legislators trade influence to attain the approval of their most preferred bills. A classic example can be found in pork barrel politics with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, in which logrolling agreements can load costs onto legislators excluded from winning coalitions. I model the bargaining amongst legislators as a repeated game and show that the outcome depends on the voters’ relative valuations toward each bill. Most interestingly, I…
Internalizing Team Production Externalities through Delegation
We show that in situations of team production, the associated externality between workers can be partially internalized via the delegation of authority of contracting rights, thus improving the overall efficiency of organizations. A delegated structure provides further incentives to individuals in higher tiers of the hierarchy because it makes them residual claimants. Our model sheds light on recent debates about the organization of the British p…
Generous Legislators? A Description of Vote Trading Agreements
Legislators trade influence to attain the approval of their most preferred bills. A classic example can be found in pork barrel politics with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, in which logrolling agreements can load costs onto legislators excluded from winning coalitions. I model the bargaining amongst legislators as a repeated game and show that the outcome depends on the voters’ relative valuations toward each bill. Most interestingly, I…
The Three As of Government Formation
How does the Prime Minister organize her government so that she can implement her policy agenda? In our model, a Prime Minister appoints individuals to her cabinet, allocates their portfolios, and assigns their policy tasks—that is, she decides the relevant jurisdiction of departments and the type of proposals a minister can make. Upon appointment, ministers obtain expertise on policies specific to their jurisdiction and strategically communicate…
Qualitative voting
Can we devise mechanisms that allow voters to express the intensity of their preferences when monetary transfers are forbidden? Can minorities be decisive over those issues they feel very strongly about? As opposed to the usual voting system (one person – one decision – one vote), we propose a voting system where each agent is endowed with a fixed number of votes that can be distributed freely among a set of issues that need to be approved or dis…
Primaries
Collusion, Blackmail and Whistle-Blowing
Whistle-blowing is usually regarded as a way to identify abuse and wrongdoing on the part of governments and corporations. In this paper we show how. at a micro level, whistle-blowing can be used as a designer tool to prevent opportunistic behavior, that takes the form of collusion or blackmail, on the part of members of a simple hierarchical structure. We focus on a three-layered principal-supervisor-agent structure and show how the principal ca…
The Effects of District Magnitude on Voting Behavior
Is there more sincere voting in multi-member districts than in single-member districts? Existing research on this question is inconclusive, at least in part because it is difficult with observational data to isolate the effect of district magnitude on voting behavior independently from voters' preferences or the number of parties. Hence, we investigate this issue in a laboratory experiment, where we vary district magnitude while keeping the distr…
The Perverse Consequences of Policy Restrictions in the Presence of Asymmetric Information
Institutions have the power to limit a government’s policy options. Policy restrictions are often used as solutions to coordination failures or time inconsistency problems. However, policy constraints can have significant drawbacks and these disadvantages have, to date, been overlooked in the literature. When institutional constraints tie a government’s hands, citizens will have less incentive to become informed about politics and participate in …
Electoral Competition, Control and Learning
This article explores an agency model in which voters learn about both an incumbent and an opponent. They observe the incumbent’s policy record and update their beliefs about his opponent via a campaign. Although the former is relatively more informative, it can be costly for the voter to learn about the incumbent from her policy record. This is because policy reforms, which allow a voter to learn an incumbent’s ability, are risky and can leave t…
Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout
How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’ degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting , conformist voters have an added incentive to ‘follow the pack’ and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a…
Pre-electoral coalitions and the distribution of political power
Pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) may increase parties’ chances of winning an election, but they may also distort electoral results and policies away from citizens’ preferences. To shed light on how PECs shape post-electoral power distribution, we study the causes and consequences of PECs in Finland where elections use an open-list proportional representation system, and parties may form joint lists. We present descriptive evidence showing that PEC…
The determinants of trust
Trust is key for economic and social development. But why do we trust others? We study the motives behind trust in strangers using an experimental trust game played by 7236 participants, in six samples representative of the general populations of Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the UK and the USA. We examine the broadest range of potential determinants of trustor sending to date, including risk tolerance, preferences for redistribution, and co…
What explains trust in institutions? Multi-disciplinary evidence from an international survey
In many countries, trust in institutions has eroded, undermining civic engagement, social cohesion, and political stability. This study analyzes the determinants of trust in government, civil servants, the judicial system, and the police, drawing on representative samples from six OECD countries (Germany, Italy, Japan, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) between 2017 and early 2020. It employs survey data, experimental methods, a…
Economics (12 obras) · Political science (10 obras) · Law (9 obras) · Microeconomics (9 obras) · Law (8 obras) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (7 obras) · Politics (7 obras) · Computer Science (6 obras) · Incentive (6 obras) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (5 obras)