IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v266y2018i2p702-715.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting for political opinions, power, and influence: A Voting Advice Application

Author

Listed:
  • Pajala, Tommi
  • Korhonen, Pekka
  • Malo, Pekka
  • Sinha, Ankur
  • Wallenius, Jyrki
  • Dehnokhalaji, Akram

Abstract

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online decision support systems that try to match voters with political parties or candidates in elections, typically based on how each responds to a number of policy issue statements. Such VAAs play a major role in many countries. In this paper, we describe the development and large-scale application of a new innovative matching algorithm for the most widely used VAA in Finland. We worked closely with the owner of the VAA, the largest daily newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat. Their previous algorithm, which one might call a “naive” approach, was improved by including measures of candidate’s political power and influence, using proxy variables of media visibility and incumbency status. The VAA was implemented for the 2015 Parliamentary Election in Finland; our matching algorithm was used by 140,000 voters (26.7% of the electorate) in the Helsinki election district. The innovative algorithm generated recommendations that many voters were happy about, followed by users’ incidental comments that this was the first time the VAA recommended candidates they wanted to vote for. This showed the importance of catering to different kinds of voters with a model not previously considered by any VAA in any country.

Suggested Citation

  • Pajala, Tommi & Korhonen, Pekka & Malo, Pekka & Sinha, Ankur & Wallenius, Jyrki & Dehnokhalaji, Akram, 2018. "Accounting for political opinions, power, and influence: A Voting Advice Application," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(2), pages 702-715.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:266:y:2018:i:2:p:702-715
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.09.031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717308524
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2017.09.031?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Gallego & Norman Schofield & Kevin McAlister & Jee Jeon, 2014. "The variable choice set logit model applied to the 2004 Canadian election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 427-463, March.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15122 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    4. Niemeyer, Horst F. & Niemeyer, Alice C., 2008. "Apportionment methods," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 240-253, September.
    5. Michel Balinski & Rida Laraki, 2014. "Judge: Don't Vote !," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(3), pages 483-511, June.
    6. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    7. Samuel D. Bond & Kurt A. Carlson & Ralph L. Keeney, 2008. "Generating Objectives: Can Decision Makers Articulate What They Want?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 56-70, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Taalaibekova, Akylai, 2019. "Opinion formation and targeting when persuaders have extreme and centrist opinions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 9-27.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gallego, Maria & Schofield, Norman, 2017. "Modeling the effect of campaign advertising on US presidential elections when differences across states matter," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 160-181.
    2. Chau, Nancy H. & Liu, Yanyan & Soundararajan, Vidhya, 2021. "Political activism as a determinant of strategic transfers: Evidence from an indian public works program," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    3. De Donder, Philippe & Gallego, Maria, 2017. "Electoral Competition and Party Positioning," TSE Working Papers 17-760, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    4. Jochen Mankart & Rigas Oikonomou, 2017. "Household Search and the Aggregate Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1735-1788.
    5. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    6. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Michael Christl, 2020. "A Beveridge curve decomposition for Austria: did the liberalisation of the Austrian labour market shift the Beveridge curve?," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 54(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    9. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    10. Eric Kaufmann & Henry Patterson, 2006. "Intra‐Party Support for the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(3), pages 509-532, October.
    11. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    12. Mihir Bhattacharya, 2019. "Constitutionally consistent voting rules over single-peaked domains," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 225-246, February.
    13. Claudio Michelacci & Hernán Ruffo, 2015. "Optimal Life Cycle Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 816-859, February.
    14. Kee, Hiau Looi & Hoon, Hian Teck, 2005. "Trade, capital accumulation and structural unemployment: an empirical study of the Singapore economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-152, June.
    15. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Ricardo Lagos, 2007. "A Model of Job and Worker Flows," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 770-819, October.
    16. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    17. Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Ring, Patrick, 2021. "Labor force participation, job search effort and unemployment insurance in the laboratory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 748-778.
    18. James Albrecht & Monica Robayo-Abril & Susan Vroman, 2019. "Public-sector Employment in an Equilibrium Search and Matching Model," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 35-61.
    19. Sven Banisch & Eckehard Olbrich, 2021. "An Argument Communication Model of Polarization and Ideological Alignment," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 24(1), pages 1-1.
    20. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:266:y:2018:i:2:p:702-715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.