New Economics Papers
on Collective Decision-Making
Issue of 2006‒04‒01
six papers chosen by



  1. Elections as Targeting Contests By César Martinelli
  2. Redistribution, taxes, and the median voter By Marco Bassetto; Jess Benhabib
  3. School choice : income and peer effect differentiation By Saïd Hanchane; Tarek Mostafa
  4. Condorcet Cycles? A Model of Intertemporal Voting By Kevin Roberts
  5. Social Choice Theory and the Informational Basis Approach By Kevin Roberts
  6. The Dissent Voting Behaviour of Bank of England MPC Members By Christopher Spencer

  1. By: César Martinelli
    Date: 2006–03–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:122247000000001280&r=cdm
  2. By: Marco Bassetto; Jess Benhabib
    Abstract: We study a simple model of production, accumulation, and redistribution, where agents are heterogeneous in their initial wealth, and a sequence of redistributive tax rates is voted upon. Though the policy is infinite-dimensional, we prove that a median voter theorem holds if households have identical, Gorman aggregable preferences; furthermore, the tax policy preferred by the median voter has the “bang- bang” property.
    Keywords: Taxation ; Wealth
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-06-02&r=cdm
  3. By: Saïd Hanchane (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - http://www.univ-aix.fr/lest - [CNRS : UMR6123] - [Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I][Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II] - []); Tarek Mostafa (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - http://www.univ-aix.fr/lest - [CNRS : UMR6123] - [Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I][Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II] - [])
    Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium on the market for schooling where both public and private schools coexist and where individuals are differentiated by income and ability. We study the distribution of students across sectors while examining the conditions for the existence of a majority voting equilibrium in the context of non single peaked preferences. Finally, we examine the existence of a hierarchy of school qualities, as a consequence of the discriminating pricing strategy used by private schools to internalize the effect of peer groups.
    Keywords: Education market; Majority voting equilibrium; Peer group effect; Pricing discrimination; Educational opportunity
    Date: 2006–03–28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00009533_v2&r=cdm
  4. By: Kevin Roberts (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
    Abstract: An intertemporal voting model is examined where, at each date, there is a pairwise majority vote between the existing chosen state and some other state, chosen randomly. Intertemporal voting simplifies the strategic issues and the agenda setting is as unrestricted as possible. The possibility of cycles is examined, both in the intertemporal extension to the Condorcet paradox and in more general examples. The set of possibilities is rich, as is demonstrated by an exhaustive study of a three person, three state world. Equilibrium in pure strategies may fail to exist but a weakening of the equilibrium concept to admit probabilistic voting allows a general existence result to be proved. The analysis leads to the development of a dominant state which extends the notion of a Condorcet winner.
    Keywords: Condorcet paradox; Condorcet winner; Condorcet winner; majority voting; intertemporal voting; strategic voting
    JEL: C73 D72 D78
    Date: 2005–05–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:econwp:0515&r=cdm
  5. By: Kevin Roberts (Nuffield College, Oxford University)
    Abstract: For over a quarter of a century, the use of utility information based upon interpersonal comparisons has been seen as an escape route from the Arrow Impossibility Theorem. This paper critically examines this informational basis approach to social choice. Even with comparability of differences and levels, feasible social choice rules must be insensitive to a range of distributional issues. Also, the Pareto principle is not solely to blame for the inability to adopt rules combining utility and non-utility information: if the Pareto principle is not invoked then there is no way of combining utility and non-utility information in a ranking of states unless levels of utility are comparable; with only level comparability, information must be combined in restrictive ways and the notion of giving different independent weight to different considerations is ruled out. If informational bases are viewed as the restriction on information that is available, rather than a theoretical limit on information, then there exist methods to estimate richer informational structures and overcome some of these difficulties.
    Date: 2005–08–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:econwp:0523&r=cdm
  6. By: Christopher Spencer (University of Surrey)
    Abstract: I examine the propensity of Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (BoEMPC) members to cast dissenting votes. In particular, I compare the type and frequency of dissenting votes cast by socalled insiders (members of the committee chosen from within the ranks of bank staff) and outsiders (committee members chosen from outside the ranks of bank staff). Significant differences in the dissent voting behaviour associated with these groups is evidenced. Outsiders are significantly more likely to dissent than insiders; however, whereas outsiders tend to dissent on the side of monetary ease, insiders do so on the side of monetary tightness. I also seek to rationalise why such differences might arise, and in particular, why BoEMPC members might be incentivised to dissent. Amongst other factors, the impact of career backgrounds on dissent voting is examined. Estimates from logit analysis suggest that the effect of career backgrounds is negligible.
    Keywords: Monetary Policy Committee, insiders, outsiders, dissent voting, career backgrounds, appointment procedures
    Date: 2006–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sur:surrec:0306&r=cdm

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