The Paradox of Vote Trading: Effects of Decision Rules and Voting Strategies on Externalities

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 929-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Uslaner ◽  
J. Ronnie Davis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Rule ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Pareto Optimal ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Optimal Result ◽  
Simple Majority Rule ◽  
Optimal Learning ◽  
Vote Trading ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

In an article, “The Paradox of Vote Trading,” (APSR 67 [December, 1973]) William H. Riker and Steven J. Brams have argued that systematic logrolling among all members of a legislature produces a paradox: While each trade is individually rational, the effects of externalities offset the potential gains from exchanging votes and each voter finds himself worse off than he would have been by voting sincerely. We extend the results of Riker and Brams to a unanimity decision rule and find that a paradox of vote trading holds for that decision rule as well as for simple majority rule. Under a unanimity rule, however, trades which would be collectively rational (i.e., which would produce a Pareto optimal result) are not individually rational; the non-trader is the beneficiary under such a decision rule. Finally, we pose the question Riker and Brams suggested: Is the paradox of vote trading inescapable? Except under very restrictive conditions, we find that it is. However, given certain assumptions about the distributions of individual utilities, we present proofs of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the Pareto optimality of vote trading and argue that in actual legislative situations, when vote trading is Pareto optimal, learning behavior should serve to extricate the members from the paradox of vote trading.

scholarly journals Flip a coin or vote? An experiment on the implementation and efficiency of social choice mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Hoffmann ◽  
Sander Renes
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Decision Rule ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Decision Quality ◽  
Revealed Preferences ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
Efficient Mechanisms

AbstractCorporate boards, experts panels, parliaments, cabinets, and even nations all take important decisions as a group. Selecting an efficient decision rule to aggregate individual opinions is paramount to the decision quality of these groups. In our experiment we measure revealed preferences over and efficiency of several important decision rules. Our results show that: (1) the efficiency of the theoretically optimal rule is not as robust as simple majority voting, and efficiency rankings in the lab can differ from theory; (2) participation constraints often hinder implementation of more efficient mechanisms; (3) these constraints are relaxed if the less efficient mechanism is risky; (4) participation preferences appear to be driven by realized rather than theoretic payoffs of the decision rules. These findings highlight the difficulty of relying on theory alone to predict what mechanism is better and acceptable to the participants in practice.

More on Decision Rules and Policy Outcomes

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amoz Katsa ◽  
Shmuel Nitzan
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Principal Result ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Block Type ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Simple Majority Rule ◽  
City Block

An attempt to rationalize policy outcomes in voting bodies has been made by Rae and Taylor (this Journal, 1 (1971), 71–90). In that work the assumption is made that all voters' preferences are representable by ‘city block’ type utility functions. The principal result obtained in that case by the writers is that for an odd number of voters there is always a unique equilibrium point under simple majority rule, independent of the distribution of individual optimal points and independent of the dimension of the policy space. Unfortunately, the Rae and Taylor result is not correct. In particular their result holds for a one or two dimensional policy space but not in cases where the policy space has three or more dimensions. The proof given by Rae and Taylor is correct for n = 2 but is false for n ≥ 3.

The extinction time of a general birth and death process with catastrophes

1986 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 851-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Brockwell
Keyword(s):  
Laplace Transform ◽  
Size Distribution ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Death Process ◽  
Extinction Time ◽  
Birth And Death Process ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Laplace Transform ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

The Laplace transform of the extinction time is determined for a general birth and death process with arbitrary catastrophe rate and catastrophe size distribution. It is assumed only that the birth rates satisfyλ0= 0,λj> 0 for eachj> 0, and. Necessary and sufficient conditions for certain extinction of the population are derived. The results are applied to the linear birth and death process (λj=jλ, µj=jμ) with catastrophes of several different types.

Budgeting in Socio-economic Development Strategies (Raising a Problem)

2008 ◽  
pp. 134-151
Author(s):  
A. Shastitko ◽  
M. Ovchinnikov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Economic Development Strategies

The article proposes an approach to the analysis of social change and contributes to the clarification of concepts of economic policy. It deals in particular with the notion of "change of system". The author considers positive and normative aspects of the analysis of capitalist and socialist systems. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the system to be changed are introduced, their fulfillment is discussed drawing upon the historical and statistical data. The article describes both economic and political peculiarities of the transitional period in different countries, especially in Eastern Europe.

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Decision Rule Selection

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Rule ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Party System ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Past Performance ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Survival Of The Fittest

This chapter extends the survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary environment to consider the possibility that new political parties, when they first come into existence, do not pick decision rules at random but instead choose rules that have a track record of past success. This is done by adding replicator-mutator dynamics to the model, according to which the probability that each rule is selected by a new party is an evolving but noisy function of that rule's past performance. Estimating characteristic outputs when this type of positive feedback enters the dynamic model creates new methodological challenges. The simulation results show that it is very rare for one decision rule to drive out all others over the long run. While the diversity of decision rules used by party leaders is drastically reduced with such positive feedback in the party system, and while some particular decision rule is typically prominent over a certain period of time, party systems in which party leaders use different decision rules are sustained over substantial periods.

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