scholarly journals Efficiency, Equity, and Timing of Voting Mechanisms

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCO BATTAGLINI ◽  
REBECCA MORTON ◽  
THOMAS PALFREY
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Information Aggregation ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Voting Games ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Sequential Voting ◽  
Participation Costs ◽  
Voting Mechanisms ◽  
Better Than

We compare the behavior of voters under simultaneous and sequential voting rules when voting is costly and information is incomplete. In many political institutions, ranging from small committees to mass elections, voting is sequential, which allows some voters to know the choices of earlier voters. For a stylized model, we generate a variety of predictions about the relative efficiency and participation equity of these two systems, which we test using controlled laboratory experiments. Most of the qualitative predictions are supported by the data, but there are significant departures from the predicted equilibrium strategies, in both the sequential and the simultaneous voting games. We find a tradeoff between information aggregation, efficiency, and equity in sequential voting: a sequential voting rule aggregates information better than simultaneous voting and is more efficient in some information environments, but sequential voting is inequitable because early voters bear more participation costs.

Linear Voting Rules

Econometrica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (6) ◽  
pp. 2037-2077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Peter Grüner ◽  
Thomas Tröger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Weighted Sum ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Election Result ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Linear Rule ◽  
Monetary Transfers ◽  
Private Values ◽  
Participation Costs ◽  
Independent Private Values

How should a society choose between two social alternatives if participation in the decision process is voluntary and costly, and monetary transfers are not feasible? Assuming symmetric independent private values, we show that it is utilitarian‐optimal to use a linear voting rule: votes get alternative‐dependent weights, and a default obtains if the weighted sum of votes stays below some threshold. Any combination of weights and threshold can be optimal. A standard quorum rule can be optimal only when it yields the same outcome as a linear rule. A linear rule is called upper linear if the default is upset at every election result that meets the threshold exactly. We develop a perturbation method to characterize equilibria of voting rules in the case of small participation costs and show that leaving participation voluntary increases welfare for any two‐sided upper linear rule that is optimal under compulsory participation.

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)

The flypaper sticks even when aid travels overseas

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 717-753
Author(s):  
Emily C. Marshall ◽  
James W. Saunoris ◽  
T. Daniel Woodbury
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Government Expenditures ◽  
Flypaper Effect ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Median Voter Model ◽  
Voting Mechanisms

This paper extends the current literature by considering the existence of the flypaper effect internationally, with donor countries supplying foreign aid to recipient countries. The flypaper effect refers to the empirical anomaly associated with intergovernmental grants stimulating government expenditures more than can be explained by a pure income effect. The results reveal evidence of flypaper behavior such that for recipient countries one dollar of foreign aid raises public spending by $0.21-$0.42, whereas an equal increase in domestic income raises government expenditures by only $0.09-$0.16. Furthermore, we exploit variation in political institutions across countries and find that the flypaper effect is most pronounced in less democratic countries and find no flypaper effect in more democratic countries. This suggests that government officials are more likely to behave as expected by the median voter model when they are held accountable. Furthermore, countries with proportional, rather than majority/plurality, voting mechanisms do not display flypaper behavior.

scholarly journals A networked voting rule for democratic representation

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 172265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis R. Hernández ◽  
Carlos Gracia-Lázaro ◽  
Edgardo Brigatti ◽  
Yamir Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
General Relation ◽  
Community Size ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
High Connectivity ◽  
Better Than

We introduce a general framework for exploring the problem of selecting a committee of representatives with the aim of studying a networked voting rule based on a decentralized large-scale platform, which can assure a strong accountability of the elected. The results of our simulations suggest that this algorithm-based approach is able to obtain a high representativeness for relatively small committees, performing even better than a classical voting rule based on a closed list of candidates. We show that a general relation between committee size and representatives exists in the form of an inverse square root law and that the normalized committee size approximately scales with the inverse of the community size, allowing the scalability to very large populations. These findings are not strongly influenced by the different networks used to describe the individuals’ interactions, except for the presence of few individuals with very high connectivity which can have a marginal negative effect in the committee selection process.

scholarly journals Uplift Resistance Capacity of Anchor Piles used in Marine Aquaculture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fukun Gui ◽  
Jianqiao Kong ◽  
Dejun Feng ◽  
Xiaoyu Qu ◽  
Fang Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Failure Load ◽  
Lateral Displacement ◽  
Single Pile ◽  
Initial Tension ◽  
Marine Aquaculture ◽  
Pile Diameter ◽  
Single Piles ◽  
Uplift Resistance ◽  
Better Than

Abstract Anchor piles are widely used in marine aquaculture, and their uplift resistance capacity largely determines their safety, especially in harsh ocean environments. However, a practical guide on its design and installation is wanting. Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of the initial tension angle, pile diameter, embedded depth, and pile configuration on the uplift resistance capacity of anchor piles for marine aquaculture under oblique loads. The results show that increasing the initial tension angle of circular and square single piles can significantly improve the uplift resistance capacity. The failure load of the square single pile was slightly higher than that of the circular single pile. Increasing the pile diameter can effectively improve the failure load and delay the development speed of the pile top displacement. Increasing the embedded depth can effectively improve the failure load and increase the lateral displacement of the pile top. The uplift resistance capacity of the dual anchor piles was better than that of the single anchor piles. The layout configuration has little effect on the failure load, but has a large effect on the displacement development.

Is Political Engagement Better Than Sex?

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Berger
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Attention Deficit ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
Better Than

This chapter examines the most prominent arguments for political engagement's importance to democratic polities, including those put forward by Alexis de Tocqueville, and shows that each presents circumstantial and ultimately inconclusive evidence. It first considers the benefits that political engagement offers to individuals and communities before discussing how essential those benefits are to the health of liberal democracy. It then evaluates defenses of political engagement's intrinsic and instrumental value and proceeds to build a case for the importance of political engagement that can stand up to critical scrutiny. It contends that were should avoid very low political engagement because it might badly undermine a democracy's claims to political legitimacy. Instead, we should care about the increased, voluntary political engagement that might ensue if political institutions were more responsive, political education were more effective, and if our attention deficit democracy could be treated through liberal means.

The effects of hatchery and wild ancestry and experience on the relative ability of steelhead trout fry (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to avoid a benthic predator

1995 ◽  
Vol 52 (11) ◽  
pp. 2476-2482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry A. Berejikian
Keyword(s):  
Oncorhynchus Mykiss ◽  
Predator Avoidance ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Test Period ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Steelhead Trout ◽  
Visual Exposure ◽  
Natural Stream ◽  
Relative Ability ◽  
Better Than

Differences in selection regimes between hatchery and natural environments and environmental stimuli, among other factors, have the potential to cause differences in predator avoidance ability between hatchery and wild steelhead trout fry (Oncorhynchus mykiss). In two separate laboratory experiments, fry raised from eggs of wild Quinault River steelhead trout survived predation by prickly sculpin (Cottus asper) significantly better than size-matched offspring of a locally derived hatchery population, which were reared under similar conditions. Wild fry also survived predation better than hatchery fry in natural stream enclosures over a 3-day test period. Experience, in the form of 50-min visual exposure to sculpin predation on "sacrificial" steelhead trout, improved the ability of fry from both populations to avoid predation by sculpin. Wild-experienced fry were eaten in the fewest number of trials followed by wild-naive, hatchery-experienced, and hatchery-naive fry. The results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that innate predator avoidance ability has been negatively altered through domestication and that attempts to condition hatchery-reared steelhead to avoid predators may be limited for domesticated populations.

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 Sequential voting rules and multiple elections paradoxes

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lirong Xia ◽  
Jérôme Lang ◽  
Mingsheng Ying
Keyword(s):  
Voting Rules ◽  
Sequential Voting ◽  
Multiple Elections

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.

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