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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Romain Biard (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, LmB, UMR6623, F-25000 Besançon, France); Mostapha Diss (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, CRESE UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France); Salma Larabi (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, CRESE UR3190, F-25000 Besançon, France) |
| Abstract: | We propose a weighted minority voting mechanism within a two-round sequential voting process, in which all individuals retain their voting rights in the second round but with different weights depending on the first-round outcome. In a utilitarian framework where individuals have a given utility function that depends on the outcomes of each round, first-round winners are identified and vote with reduced weight in the second round, while losers retain full weight. By giving greater weight to first-round losers, this design ensures that first-round winners continue to contribute to the final decision without dominating it, thereby mitigating repeated disadvantages for losers. We then compare the expected aggregate utility of society across different levels of second-round weight assigned to first-round losers, including both the simple majority rule – where all voters carry equal weight in both rounds – and the limiting case of minority voting where first-round losers receive no weight in the second round. To do so, we analyze two models: one in which individual utility derives solely from material payoffs, and another in which a form of harmony is considered, whereby individuals incur a utility loss if others repeatedly belong to the losing minority. This analysis allows us to assess how strategic behavior affects the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Voting, Minority Voting, Simple Majority, Utilitarianism, Harmony. |
| JEL: | C72 D70 D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2026-01 |
| By: | Eggers, Andrew C. (University of Chicago); Li, Zikai (University of Chicago); Rubenson, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Survey research yields the surprising conclusion that voters strategically abandon small parties to a similar degree in first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) systems. If true, this challenges Duverger's classic theory that strategic voting helps explain why PR systems have more parties. We argue instead that observational analyses of FPTP and PR elections produce similar patterns of apparently strategic voter behavior because they suffer from the same methodological flaw. After reproducing previous findings in a more comprehensive dataset, we show via placebo tests that the same research design would erroneously imply strategic behavior in non-strategic outcomes like party identification. We also show that a more rigorous design reduces but does not eliminate the problem. Our findings suggest that isolating the effect of party popularity on vote choice using observational data may be fundamentally more difficult than the literature has recognized, and that alternative approaches are needed. |
| Date: | 2026–01–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vtbw7_v1 |
| By: | Jesús Fernández-Villaverde; Tomohide Mineyama; Dongho Song |
| Abstract: | We study how uneven gains from globalization can endogenously generate protectionism as a political equilibrium. Using U.S. data, we document that regions more exposed to import competition display stronger opposition to globalization, especially among households with little financial wealth, and that firms in trade-exposed sectors sharply increase lobbying expenditures. To interpret these patterns, we develop and quantify a general equilibrium Ricardian model with heterogeneous households, input-output linkages, and endogenous trade policy shaped by voting and lobbying. Distributional shocks reallocate political support among voters, while lobbying propagates through production networks, generating strategic complementarities that sustain protectionism. Calibrated to U.S.-China sectoral data from 1991--2019, the model accounts for rising inequality, declining support for globalization, and key aggregate trends in consumption and trade. |
| JEL: | D57 D58 D63 D72 F1 F2 F4 F6 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34672 |
| By: | Zafer Kanik; Zaruhi Hakobyan |
| Abstract: | Social media platforms systematically reward popularity but not authenticity, incentivizing users to strategically tailor their expression for attention. We develop a utilitarian framework addressing strategic expression in social media. Agents hold fixed heterogeneous authentic opinions and derive (i) utility gains from the popularity of their own posts--measured by likes received--, and (ii) utility gains (losses) from exposure to content that aligns with (diverges from) their authentic opinion. Social media interaction acts as a state-dependent welfare amplifier: light topics generate Pareto improvements, whereas intense topics make everyone worse off in a polarized society (e.g., political debates during elections). Moreover, strategic expression amplifies social media polarization during polarized events while dampening it during unified events (e.g., national celebrations). Consequently, strategic distortions magnify welfare outcomes, expanding aggregate gains in light topics while exacerbating losses in intense, polarized ones. Counterintuitively, strategic agents often face a popularity trap: posting a more popular opinion is individually optimal, yet collective action by similar agents eliminates their authentic opinion from the platform, leaving them worse off than under the authentic-expression benchmark. Preference-based algorithms--widely used by platforms--or homophilic exposures discipline popularity-driven behavior, narrowing the popularity trap region and limiting its welfare effects. Our framework fills a critical gap in the social media literature by providing a microfoundation for user welfare that maps to observable metrics, while also introducing popularity incentives as an unexplored channel in social networks distinct from the canonical mechanisms of conformity, learning, persuasion, and (mis)information transmission. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2601.01370 |