This paper studies the political determinants of inequalities in government interventions under majoritarian (MAJ) and proportional representation (PR) systems. We propose a probabilistic voting model of electoral competition with highly targetable government interventions and heterogeneous localities. We uncover a novel relative electoral sensitivity effect that affects government interventions only under MAJ systems. This effect tends to reduce inequality in government interventions under MAJ systems when districts are composed of sufficiently homogeneous localities. This effect goes against the conventional wisdom that MAJ systems are necessarily more conducive to inequality than PR systems. We illustrate the empirical relevance of our results with numerical simulations on possible reforms of the US Electoral College.

中文翻译：

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选举制度和政府干预中的不平等

本文研究了多数主义 (MAJ) 和比例代表 (PR) 制度下政府干预中不平等的政治决定因素。我们提出了一种具有高度针对性的政府干预和异质地区的选举竞争的概率投票模型。我们发现了一种新的相对选举敏感性效应，该效应仅在 MAJ 系统下影响政府干预。当地区由足够同质的地方组成时，这种效果往往会减少 MAJ 系统下政府干预的不平等。这种效果违背了 MAJ 系统必然比 PR 系统更容易导致不平等的传统观点。我们通过对美国选举人团可能改革的数值模拟来说明我们的结果的经验相关性。