Would rational voters acquire costly information?

We analyze an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is better for them. Voters can acquire some costly information about the alternatives. In agreement with Downs's rational ignorance hypothesis, individual investment in political information declines to zero as the number of voters increases. However, if the marginal cost of information is near zero for nearly irrelevant information, there is a sequence of equilibria such that the election outcome is likely to correspond to the interests of the majority for arbitrarily large numbers of voters. Thus, “rationally ignorant” voters are consistent with a well-informed electorate.     

Condorcet Jury Theorem or Rational Ignorance

We analyze a symmetric model of an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is desirable for them. Each voter must incur some cost to acquire information about the alternatives. We show that by focusing on unbiased voting strategies, general symmetric signal structures can be degenerated to a two‐signal model. In addition, we show that for any sequence of unbiased voting equilibria, if the second‐order derivative of the information cost function at no information is zero, then the probability of electing the desirable alternative converges to one, that is, the Condorcet Jury Theorem is valid. Otherwise, this probability converges to some value less than one; that is, the “rational ignorance” hypothesis is valid.     

Coordinated voting in sequential and simultaneous elections: some experimental evidence

This paper studies a situation wherein a set of voters choose between two alternatives in the presence of a payoff externality. Specifically, regardless of her intrinsic preference, a voter’s payoff is maximized should she vote for the alternative that garners a majority of the votes cast. Are votes coordinated on a single alternative? Using laboratory experiments, we examine voting patterns in sequential voting and simultaneous voting elections. Across both election types, we also vary the amount of information that an individual voter has regarding the intrinsic preferences of the other voters. Our main findings are as follows. In the “low” information treatment, sequential voting elections facilitate coordinated voting. However, in the “high” information treatment, voting patterns are not dependent on how the election is structured.     

Pivots versus signals in elections

We consider a two-period model of elections in which voters have private information about their policy preferences. A first-period vote can have two types of consequences: it may be pivotal in the first election and it provides a signal that affects candidates' positions in the second election. Pivot events are exceedingly unlikely, but when they occur the effect of a single vote is enormous. In contrast, vote totals always have some signaling effect, but the effect of a single vote is small. We investigate which effect - pivot or signaling - drives equilibrium voting behavior in large electorates.     

The swing voter's curse with adversarial preferences

We analyze voting behavior in a large electorate in which voters have adversarial state-contingent preferences with incomplete information about the state of the world. We show that one type of voter can suffer from the swing voter's curse à la Feddersen and Pesendorfer [The swing voter's curse, Amer. Econ. Rev. 86 (1996) 408-424], and go on to characterize the symmetric Nash equilibria of this model under different parameter values. We prove that unlike settings with nonadversarial preferences, there are equilibria in which in one state of the world, a minority-preferred candidate almost surely wins the election and thus the election may fail to correctly aggregate information. Indeed, we show that the fraction of the electorate dissatisfied with the result can be as large as .     

Manipulation through political endorsements

We study elections with three candidates under plurality voting. A candidate is a Condorcet loser if the majority of the voters place that candidate at the bottom of their preference rankings. We first show that a Condorcet loser might win the election in a three-way race. Next we introduce to the model an endorser who has private information about the true probability distribution of the preferences of the voters. Observable endorsements facilitate coordination among voters who may otherwise split their votes and lead to the victory of the Condorcet loser. When the endorser has an ideological bias towards one of the candidates, the coordination impact of endorsements remains unaltered, moreover the endorser successfully manipulates the outcome of the election in favor of his bias, even if his ideological bias is known by the voters. The results are true for any endorsement cost and any magnitude of bias as long as the electorate is large enough.     

Would letting people vote for multiple candidates yield policy moderation?

We investigate whether letting people vote for multiple candidates would yield policy moderation. We do so in a setting that takes three key features of elections into account, namely, strategic voting, endogenous candidacy and policy motivation on the part of the candidates. We consider two classes of voting rules. One class consists of the voting rules where each voter casts several equally-weighed votes for the different candidates. The other class consists of the voting rules where each voter rank-orders the candidates. We identify conditions under which these voting rules yield policy moderation. We also show that these voting rules may yield policy extremism instead of policy moderation if one (or several) of the conditions is not satisfied! Finally, we find that amongst these voting rules the extent of policy moderation is maximal under the Borda Count if we consider only equilibria where all candidates are serious contenders. However, this result does not carry over to spoiler equilibria, where Approval Voting can yield more moderate policy outcomes than the Borda Count.     

Condorcet cycles in bipartite populations

Summary. Simple majority voting between pairs of alternatives is used to aggregate individual preferences. The occurence of Condorcet cycles is limited thanks to a principle of homogeneity on individual preferences. The restrictions induced on the domain of the latters are weak: among the n! possible orderings of n alternatives, more than one half are admissible within a domain. The resulting aggregated preference has then a neglectable probability of showing up cycles. We show moreover that the set of individual preferences can be `naturally' partitioned into two such domains. Received: June 17, 1996; revised version: April 15, 1997     

On the informational efficiency of simple scoring rules

We study information aggregation in large elections. With two candidates, efficient information aggregation is possible (e.g., Feddersen and Pesendorfer [5], [6] and [7]). We show that this result does not extend to elections with more than two candidates. We study a class of simple scoring rules in voting games with Poisson population uncertainty and three candidates. No simple scoring rule aggregates information efficiently, even if preferences are dichotomous and a Condorcet winner always exists. We introduce a weaker criterion of informational efficiency that requires a voting rule to have at least one efficient equilibrium. Only approval voting satisfies this criterion.     

A swing state theory of trade protection in the Electoral College

This paper analyzes trade policy determination in the Electoral College in the presence of swing voters. It determines the circumstances under which incumbent politicians have an incentive to build a reputation for protectionism, thus swaying voting decisions and improving their re‐election probability. Strategic trade protection is shown to be more likely when protectionist swing voters have a lead over free trade supporters in states with relatively strong electoral competition and in states representing a larger proportion of Electoral College votes. An empirical test using a measure of industrial concentration in swing and decisive U.S. states lends support to the theoretical findings.     

Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules

We provide empirical evidence for Tullock's claim (Tullock (1967, 1981)) that many of the problems known from social choice literature do not show up in practice. In particular, even though theoretically the use of different voting rules can lead to very different outcomes, there appears to be rather high consensus among voting rules when applied to real-world preference data. In addition, the famous and widely studied problem of majority cycles seems to be of little significance in practice. In this study, based on data collected in an online-survey in connection with the 2015 parliament election in the Austrian federal state of Styria, we confirm these findings to a high degree. Our analysis is based on an approach using a nonparametric bootstrap and includes various forms of evaluative voting (which has recently received increasing attention).     

Information transmission in coalitional voting games

A core allocation of a complete information economy can be characterized as one that would not be unanimously rejected in favor of another feasible alternative by any coalition. We use this test of coalitional voting in an incomplete information environment to formalize a notion of resilience. Since information transmission is implicit in the Bayesian equilibria of such voting games, this approach makes it possible to derive core concepts in which the transmission of information among members of a coalition is endogenous. Our results lend support to the credible core of Dutta and Vohra [Incomplete information, credibility and the core, Math. Soc. Sci. 50 (2005) 148-165] and the core proposed by Myerson [Virtual utility and the core for games with incomplete information, Mimeo, University of Chicago, 2005] as two that can be justified in terms of coalitional voting.     

The influence of group size on distributional fairness under voting by veto

Voting by Veto [VBV], developed by Dennis C. Mueller, is a two-stage voting mechanism for committee decision making. In the first stage, every member of the committee makes a proposal. The proposals are joined with the current status quo (or another fallback option). For the second stage, a random mechanism determines the order of voting and the committee members sequentially eliminate one alternative each. After every committee member has exercised her veto, a single winning alternative remains. Game theory predicts that the equality of the resulting distribution under VBV varies with group size. Hence, decisions in two-member groups should result in highly unequal distributions of benefits. With increasing group size, however, VBV should generate more equally distributed outcomes. We examine the effect of group size under VBV in a series of laboratory experiments where groups with a varying number of members play a ‘divide the dollar game’. Our results confirm that larger groups choose more equal distributions than smaller groups. However, we also find deviations from the model's predictions. Some committees in our experiment do not select Pareto-optimal alternatives. An exploratory analysis of possible explanations suggests that individual behavior is most likely motivated by a combination of material self-interest and social preferences such as reciprocity and fairness.     

Policy biases with voters’ uncertainty about the economy and the government

We model policy choices where parties competing for election are better informed than voters about the state of the economy. In addition voters are uncertain about the incumbent's preferences and the median voter's vote potentially depends on the state of the economy. The incumbent may bias his policy in order to convey information to the voters and raise his chance of reelection. The bias depends crucially on which kind of uncertainty is the most important. Uncertainty about preferences leads to moderate policies, while uncertainty about the state of the economy leads to extreme policies.     

Group decision-making in the shadow of disagreement

A model of group decision-making is studied, in which one of two alternatives must be chosen. While agents differ in their preferences over alternatives, everybody prefers agreement to disagreement. Our model is distinguished by three features: private information regarding valuations, differing intensities in preferences, and the option to declare neutrality to avoid disagreement. There is always an equilibrium in which the majority is more aggressive in pushing its alternative, thus enforcing their will via both numbers and voice. However, under general conditions an aggressive minority equilibrium inevitably makes an appearance, provided that the group is large enough. Such equilibria invariably display a “tyranny of the minority”: the increased aggression of the minority always outweighs their smaller number, leading to the minority outcome being implemented with larger probability than the majority alternative. We fully characterize the asymptotic behavior of this model as group size becomes large, and show that all equilibria must converge to one of three possible limit outcomes.     

Partially Binding Platforms: Campaign Promises vis‐à‐vis Cost of Betrayal

This study examines and models the effects of partially binding campaign platforms in a political competition. Here, a candidate who implements a policy that differs from the platform must pay a cost of betrayal, which increases with the size of the discrepancy. I also analyse endogenous decisions by citizens to run for an election. In particular, the model is able to show two implications that previous frameworks have had difficulty with. First, candidates with different characteristics have different probabilities of winning an election. Second, even knowing that he/she will lose an election, a candidate will still run, hoping to make an opponent's policy approach his/her own policy.     

Did political constraints bind during transition?Evidence from Czech elections, 1990–20021

Many theoretical models of transition are driven by the assumption that economic decision making is subject to political constraints. In this paper we test whether the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of economic reform influenced voting behaviour in the first five national elections in the Czech Republic. We propose that voters, taking stock of endowments from the planning era, could predict whether they would become winners or losers of transition. Using survey data we measure the degree to which regions were ‘not afraid’ or ‘afraid’ of economic reform in 1990. We define the former as potential ‘winners’ who should vote for pro‐reform parties and the latter as potential ‘losers’ who should support left‐wing parties. Using election results and economic indicators at the regional level, we demonstrate that there is persistence in support for pro‐reform and communist parties which is driven by prospective voting based on initial conditions in 1990. We find that regional unemployment rates in 2002 are good predictors of voting patterns in 1990 and provide empirical evidence that political constraints bind during transition.     

LOBBYING AND ELECTIONS

I analyse the interaction between post‐election lobbying and the voting decisions of forward‐looking voters. The existing literature has shown that in models with citizen candidates from a dispersed distribution of preferences, lobbying has no influence on implemented policy. In my model with ideological parties, lobbying is shown to have an effect on policy. In terms of welfare, I show that the median voter and the majority of voters can be better off with lobbying.     

Electoral goals and center-state transfers: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from India

We construct a model of redistributive politics where the central government is opportunistic and uses its discretion to make transfers to state governments on the basis of political considerations. These considerations are the alignment between the incumbent parties at the central and state levels and whether a state is a swing state or not. A testable prediction from the model is that a state that is both swing and aligned with the central government is especially likely to receive higher transfers. We test this prediction using Indian data for 14 states from 1974–75 to 1996–97. We find that a state which is both aligned and swing in the last state election is estimated to receive 16% higher transfers than a state which is unaligned and non-swing.     

Deliberative voting

We analyze a model of jury decision making in which jurors deliberate before casting their votes. We consider a wide range of voting institutions and show that deliberations render these equivalent with respect to the sequential equilibrium outcomes they generate. In particular, in the context of a jury setup, all voting rules excluding the two types of unanimity rules (one requiring a unanimous consensus to acquit, one requiring a unanimous consensus to convict) induce the same set of equilibria outcomes. We show the robustness of our results with respect to several restrictions on communication protocols and jurors’ strategies. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our observations extend to practically all of the voting structures commonly studied in the voting literature. The paper suggests the importance of accounting for communication in models of collective choice.