Alesina, AlbertoPassarelli, Francesco2017-11-062015Alesina, Alberto and Francesco Passarelli. 2015. Loss Aversion in Politics. Working paper.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34330174We study loss aversion in majority voting. First, we show a status quo bias. Second, loss aversion implies a moderating effect. Third, in a dynamic setting, the effect of loss aversion diminishes with the length of the planning horizon of voters; however, in the presence of a projection bias, majorities are partially unable to understand how fast they will adapt. Fourth, in a stochastic environment, loss aversion yields a significant distaste for risk, but also a smaller attachment to the status quo. The application of these results to a model of redistribution leads to empirically plausible implications.en-USJournal Article2017-11-06