Should I double park or should I go? The effect of political ideology on collective action problems

Collective action problems, such as double parking behavior, are pervasive in everyday life. This paper presents the results from a field survey that was carried out at one of the main and busiest streets of the city of Ioannina in Greece, in order to investigate the effect of political ideology on double parking behavior. We find that individuals placing themselves either on the extreme Left or the extreme Right on a [0-10] political spectrum, are characterized by increased propensity of double parking behavior. Taking into account that both the extreme Left and the extreme Right Greek parties are strongly in favor of state intervention, our empirical findings could be read as follows. Subjects that believe in the superiority of state intervention rely heavier on incentives and constraints provided by the law and therefore in the absence of an effective monitoring mechanism they fail to internalize the social cost of their actions. In contrast, subjects that are in favor of decentralized market solutions, take into account the social impact of their actions even in the absence of a strong monitoring state mechanism.