Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty, and Voting Rules

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID AUSTEN-SMITH ◽  
TIMOTHY J. FEDDERSEN
Keyword(s):  
Information Sharing ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
General Setting ◽  
Full Information ◽  
Information Revelation ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Unanimity Rule ◽  
Preference Uncertainty ◽  
Voting Rule

A deliberative committee is a group of at least two individuals who first debate about what alternative to choose prior to these same individuals voting to determine the choice. We argue, first, that uncertainty about individuals' private preferences is necessary for full information sharing and, second, demonstrate in a very general setting that the condition under which unanimity can support full information revelation in debate amounts to it being common knowledge that all committee members invariably share identical preferences over the alternatives. It follows that if ever there exists an equilibrium with fully revealing debate under unanimity rule, there exists an equilibrium with fully revealing debate under any voting rule. Moreover, the converse is not true of majority rule if there is uncertainty about individuals' preferences.

scholarly journals Voting Rules in Sequential Search by Committees: Theory and Experiments

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (9) ◽  
pp. 4349-4364
Author(s):  
Vincent Mak ◽  
Darryl A. Seale ◽  
Amnon Rapoport ◽  
Eyran J. Gisches
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Secretary Problem ◽  
Sequential Search ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Unanimity Rule ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
The Individual

We propose a committee extension of the individual sequential search model called the “secretary problem,” where collective decisions on when to stop the search are reached via a prespecified voting rule. We offer a game-theoretic analysis of our model and then report two experiments on three-person committees with either uncorrelated or perfectly correlated preferences under three different voting rules followed by a third experiment on single decision makers. Relative to equilibrium predictions, committees with uncorrelated preferences oversearched under minority and majority voting rules but, otherwise, undersearched or approximated equilibrium play. Individually, committee members were often less strategic when their preferences were uncorrelated than when they were perfectly correlated. Collectively, committees’ decisions were more strategic than single decision makers’ only under the unanimity rule, although still not significantly better in terms of the decision makers’ welfare. Finally, across our experiments that involved committee search, the unanimity rule always optimized committee welfare. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics.

Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Feddersen ◽  
Wolfgang Pesendorfer
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
High Probability ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Simple Majority Rule ◽  
Unanimity Rule ◽  
Jury Verdicts ◽  
Innocent Defendant ◽  
Basic Intuition

It is often suggested that requiring juries to reach a unanimous verdict reduces the probability of convicting an innocent defendant while increasing the probability of acquitting a guilty defendant. We construct a model that demonstrates how strategic voting by jurors undermines this basic intuition. We show that the unanimity rule may lead to a high probability of both kinds of error and that the probability of convicting an innocent defendant may actually increase with the size of the jury. Finally, we demonstrate that a wide variety of voting rules, including simple majority rule, lead to much lower probabilities of both kinds of error.

scholarly journals Decision Costs and Welfare Effects of Democratic Voting Rules: an Experimental Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-183
Author(s):  
Ulrich Glassmann ◽  
Jan Sauermann
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Experimental Analysis ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Welfare Effects ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Unanimity Rule ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Critical Revision ◽  
Pareto Efficient

AbstractWhat impact do majority rule and unanimity rule have on welfare and decision costs? According to Buchanan and Tullock ([1962] 1999) the unanimity principle must be regarded as a democratic norm, because it guarantees Pareto-efficient welfare effects. We present experimental results from a public goods game, which demonstrate in contrast to this assumption that majority rule can produce greater welfare effects than unanimity rule. This result suggests a critical revision of theoretical approaches which narrow the legiti­macy of majority rule in this respect.

Is Majority Rule Justified in Constitutional Adjudication?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristóbal Caviedes
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

Abstract In this article, I challenge the use of a majority voting rule (majority rule) to declare statutes unconstitutional in many constitutional courts. To do this, I briefly present four main features of majority rule and assess whether these features (separately and jointly considered) provide definitive reasons for using this voting rule over others in constitutional adjudication. I conclude that these features do not provide such reasons either individually or taken together. This conclusion enables one to analyse whether constitutional courts should use other voting rules in constitutional adjudication, such as supermajority rules.

scholarly journals Decision Making in Committees: Transparency, Reputation, and Voting Rules

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilat Levy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Career Concerns ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
The Public ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
The Right

In this paper I analyze the effect of transparency on decision making in committees. I focus on committees whose members are motivated by career concerns. The main result is that when the decision-making process is secretive (when individual votes are not revealed to the public), committee members comply with preexisting biases. For example, if the voting rule demands a supermajority to accept a reform, individuals vote more often against reforms. Transparent committees are therefore more likely to accept reforms. I also find that coupled with the right voting rule, a secretive procedure may induce better decisions than a transparent one. (JEL D71, D72)

When Do Conflicting Parties Share Political Power?

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Battaglini ◽  
Lydia Mechtenberg
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Small Extent ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Proportional Rule ◽  
Simple Majority Rule ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Do So

AbstractWe conduct a laboratory experiment to study the incentives of a privileged group (the “yellows”) to share political power with another group (the “blues”). The yellows collectively choose the voting rule for a general election: a simple-majority rule that favors them, or a proportional rule. In two treatments, the blues can use a costly punishment option. We find that the yellows share power voluntarily only to a small extent, but they are more inclined to do so under the threat of punishment, despite the fact that punishments are not sub-game perfect. The blue group conditions punishments both on the voting rule and the electoral outcome.

scholarly journals Jury Verdicts and Preference Diversity

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dino Gerardi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Equilibrium Strategy ◽  
Correct Decision ◽  
Unanimity Rule ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Jury Verdicts ◽  
Asymptotically Efficient

I develop a model of decision making in juries when there is uncertainty about jurors' preferences. I provide a characterization of the equilibrium strategy under any voting rule and show that nonunanimous rules are asymptotically efficient. Specifically, large juries make the correct decision with probability close to one. My analysis also demonstrates that under the unanimous rule, large juries almost never convict the defendant. The last result contrasts markedly with the literature and suggests that the unanimity rule can protect the innocent only at the price of acquitting the guilty.

scholarly journals Strategic Abstention based on Preference Extensions: Positive Results and Computer-Generated Impossibilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Brandl ◽  
Felix Brandt ◽  
Christian Geist ◽  
Johannes Hofbauer
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Logic ◽  
Pareto Optimal ◽  
Large Problem ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Joint Decisions ◽  
Sat Solver ◽  
Unsatisfiable Core ◽  
Positive Results

Voting rules allow multiple agents to aggregate their preferences in order to reach joint decisions. A common flaw of some voting rules, known as the no-show paradox, is that agents may obtain a more preferred outcome by abstaining from an election. We study strategic abstention for set-valued voting rules based on Kelly's and Fishburn's preference extensions. Our contribution is twofold. First, we show that, whenever there are at least five alternatives and seven agents, every Pareto-optimal majoritarian voting rule suffers from the no-show paradox with respect to Fishburn's extension. This is achieved by reducing the statement to a finite - yet very large - problem, which is encoded as a formula in propositional logic and then shown to be unsatisfiable by a SAT solver. We also provide a human-readable proof which we extracted from a minimal unsatisfiable core of the formula. Secondly, we prove that every voting rule that satisfies two natural conditions cannot be manipulated by strategic abstention with respect to Kelly's extension and give examples of well-known Pareto-optimal majoritarian voting rules that meet these requirements.

The Study of Strategic Voting

2019 ◽  
pp. 291-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Blais ◽  
Arianna Degan
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Strategic Vote ◽  
Plurality Rule ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Lab Experiments ◽  
Voting Rule

This chapter stresses the necessity of distinguishing between a strategic vote and a strategic voter. The sincere voter always casts a sincere vote, while the strategic voter casts a sincere or strategic vote depending on the context and the voting rule. This leads to two definitions of strategic voting: a broad one, where a strategic vote is one that is partly based on expectations about the outcome of the election, and a narrow one, where a strategic vote also entails not voting sincerely. The chapter then reviews three types of empirical research that differ with respect to the type of data used: the observation of electoral outcomes, survey data, and lab experiments. That literature has confirmed that indeed some voters cast a strategic vote, though many studies have found most votes to be sincere. That research has also shown that there is some degree of strategic voting under all kinds of voting rules; that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there is as much strategic voting under proportional representation as under plurality rule; and that the propensity to vote strategically depends very much on the type of information that is available.

scholarly journals Timing Decisions in Organizations: Communication and Authority in a Dynamic Environment

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (9) ◽  
pp. 2552-2581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven R. Grenadier ◽  
Andrey Malenko ◽  
Nadya Malenko
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Optimal Decision ◽  
Full Information ◽  
Information Revelation ◽  
Timing Decision ◽  
Timing Decisions ◽  
Early Decision ◽  
Optimal Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Rule

We consider a problem where an uninformed principal makes a timing decision interacting with an informed but biased agent. Because time is irreversible, the direction of the bias crucially affects the agent's ability to credibly communicate information. When the agent favors late decision making, full information revelation often occurs. In this case, centralized decision making, where the principal retains authority and communicates with the agent, implements the optimal decision-making rule. When the agent favors early decision making, communication is partial, and the optimal decision-making rule is not implemented. Delegation adds value when the bias is for early decision making, but not for late decision making. (JEL D21, D23, D82, D83)

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