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on Collective Decision-Making |
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Issue of 2006‒11‒25
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Kelly Shue; Erzo F. P. Luttmer |
| Abstract: | If voters are fully rational and have negligible cognition costs, ballot layout should not affect election outcomes. In this paper, we explore deviations from rational voting using quasi-random variation in candidate name placement on ballots from the 2003 California Recall Election. We find that the voteshares of minor candidates almost double when their names are adjacent to the names of major candidates on a ballot. Voteshare gains are largest in precincts with high percentages of Democratic, Hispanic, low-income, non-English speaking, poorly educated, or young voters. A major candidate that attracts a disproportionate share of voters from these types of precincts faces a systematic electoral disadvantage. If the Republican frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic frontrunner Cruz Bustamante had been in a tie, adjacency misvoting would have given Schwarzenegger an edge of 0.06% of the voteshare. This gain in voteshare exceeds the margins of victory in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election and the 2004 Washington Gubernatorial Election. We explore which voting technology platforms and brands mitigate misvoting. |
| JEL: | D01 D72 D83 J10 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12709&r=cdm |
| By: | Alessandra Casella (Department of Economics, Columbia University); Thomas Palfrey (Division of Humanities, Cal Tech); Raymond Riezman (Department of Economics, University of Iowa) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies a simple voting system that has the potential to increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency. Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desired over a series of binary decisions. By accumulating votes on issues that it deems most important, the minority can win occasionally. But because the majority typically can outvote it, the minority wins only if its strength of preference is high and the majority's strength of preference is low. The result is that with storable votes, aggregate efficiency either falls little or in fact rises. The theoretical predictions of our model are confirmed by a series of experiments: the frequency of minority victories, the relative payoff of the minority versus the majority, and the aggregate payoffs all match the theory. |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ads:wpaper:0059&r=cdm |
| By: | Alessandra Casella (Department of Economics, Columbia University); Andrew Gelman (Department of Statistics, Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a simple scheme designed to elicit and reward intensity of preferences in referenda: voters faced with a number of binary proposals are given one regular vote for each proposal plus an additional number of bonus votes to cast as desired. Decisions are taken according to the majority of votes cast. In our base case, where there is no systematic difference between proposals’ supporters and opponents, there is always a positive number of bonus votes such that ex ante utility is increased by the scheme, relative to simple majority voting. When the distributions of valuations of supporters and opponents differ, the improvement in efficiency is guaranteed if the distributions can be ranked according to first order stochastic dominance. If they are, however, the existence of welfare gains is independent of the exact number of bonus votes. |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ads:wpaper:0060&r=cdm |
| By: | David Masclet (CREM, Department of Economics, University of Rennes 1 et CIRANO,Montréal); Youenn Loheac (Graduate School of Management of Brittany et Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Laurent Denant-Boemont (CREM, Department of Economics, University of Rennes 1); Nathalie Colombier (CREM, Department of Economics, University of Rennes 1) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on decision making under risk, comparing group and individual risk preferences in a lottery-choice experiment inspired by Holt and Laury (2002). The experiment presents subjects with a menu of unordered lottery choices which allows us to measure risk aversion. In the individual treatment, subjects make lottery choices individually ; in the group treatment, each subject was placed in an anonymous group of three, where unanimous lottery choice decisions were made via voting. Finally, in a third treatment, called the choice treatment, subjects could choose whether to be on their own or in a group. our main findings are that groups are more likely than individuals to choose safe lotteries for decisions with low winning percentages. Moreover, groups converge toward less risky decisions because subjects who were relatively less risk averse were more likely to change their vote in order to conform to the group average decision ; more risk-averse individuals were less likely to change their preferences. Finally our results reveal a positive relationship between preference for risk and willingness to decide alone. |
| Keywords: | Experiment, decision rule, individual decision, group decision. |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D81 D70 M10 |
| Date: | 2004–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:bla06063&r=cdm |
| By: | Tatsuyoshi Saijo (Osaka University); Tomas Sjostrom (Department of Economics, Rutgers University); Takehiko Yamato (Department of Values and Decision Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Strategy-proofness, requiring that truth-telling is a dominant strategy, is a standard concept in social choice theory. However, this concept has serious drawbacks. In particular, many strategy-proof mechanisms have multiple Nash equilibria, some of which produce the wrong outcome. A possible solution to this problem is to require double implementation in Nash equilibrium and in dominant strategies, i.e., secure implementation. We characterize securely implementable social choice functions, and compare our results with dominant strategy implementation. In standard quasi-linear environments with divisible private or public goods, there exist Pareto efficient (non-dictatorial) social choice functions that can be securely implemented. But in the absence of side-payments, secure implementation is incompatible with Pareto efficiency. |
| JEL: | C92 D71 D78 H41 |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ads:wpaper:0056&r=cdm |
| By: | Timothy N. Cason (Department of Economics, Purdue University); Tatsuyoshi Saijo (Osaka University); Tomas Sjostrom (Department of Economics, Rutgers University); Takehiko Yamato (Department of Value & Decision Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Strategy-proofness, requiring that truth-telling is a dominant strategy, is a standard concept used in social choice theory. Saijo et al. (2003) argue that this concept has serious drawbacks. In particular, many strategy-proof mechanisms have a continuum of Nash equilibria, including equilibria other than dominant strategy equilibria. For only a subset of strategy-proof mechanisms do the set of Nash equilibria and the set of dominant strategy equilibria coincide. For example, this double coincidence occurs in the Groves mechanism when preferences are single-peaked. We report experiments using two strategy-proof mechanisms. One of them has a large number of Nash equilibria, but the other has a unique Nash equilibrium. We found clear differences in the rate of dominant strategy play between the two. |
| Keywords: | Experiment, Laboratory, Secure Implementation, Groves-Clarke, Pivotal, Learning |
| JEL: | C92 D71 D78 H41 |
| Date: | 2005–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ads:wpaper:0055&r=cdm |
| By: | Alison Watts (Southern Illinois University) |
| Abstract: | A model of group formation is presented where the number of groups is fixed and a person can only join a group if the group’s members approve the person’s joining. Agents have either local status preferences (each agent wants to be the highest status agent in his group) or global status preferences (each agent wants to join the highest status group that she can join). For both preference types, conditions are provided which guarantee the existence of a segregated stable partition where similar people are grouped together and conditions are provided which guarantee the existence of an integrated stable partition where dissimilar people are grouped together. Additionally, in a dynamic framework we show that if a new empty group is added to a segregated stable partition, then integration may occur. |
| Keywords: | Group Formation, Stable Partition, Segregation, Integration |
| JEL: | C7 D6 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2006.127&r=cdm |