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Voting as a Lottery

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  • Attanasi, Giuseppe Marco
  • Corazzini, Luca
  • Passarelli, Francesco
Abstract
Voting is a lottery in which an individual who is uncertain about how the others vote wins if she belongs to the majority or loses if she falls into the minority. The risk of losing can be reduced by increasing the majority threshold. This however has the negative effect of also lowering the chance to win. We find that an individual prefers higher majority thresholds when she is more risk averse, less powerful, or less optimistic about the chance that others will vote like her. De facto, raising the majority threshold is a form of protection against the higher risk of being tyrannized by an unfavorable majority. We include these preferences for majority thresholds in a Nash bargaining game that describes constitutional negotiations over voting rules. Individuals that largely avert the risk of being tyrannized behave reluctantly during negotiations, and succeed in getting higher protection through a threshold raise.

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  • Attanasi, Giuseppe Marco & Corazzini, Luca & Passarelli, Francesco, 2010. "Voting as a Lottery," TSE Working Papers 09-116, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:22207
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    2. Barberà, Salvador & Coelho, Danilo, 2017. "Balancing the power to appoint officers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 189-203.
    3. André de Palma & Gordon M. Myers & Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou, 2023. "Imperfect public choice," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 1413-1429, November.
    4. Giuseppe Attanasi & Luca Corazzini & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Francesco Passarelli, 2014. "Special Section: Experiments on Learning, Methods, and Voting," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 355-386, August.
    5. Leontiou, Anastasia & Manalis, Georgios & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2023. "Bandwagons in costly elections: The role of loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 471-490.
    6. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    7. Francesco Passarelli, 2011. "Risky Political Changes: Rational Choice vs Prospect Theory," ISLA Working Papers 39, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2019. "Costs of change and political polarization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Jet G Sanders & Rob Jenkins, 2016. "Weekly Fluctuations in Risk Tolerance and Voting Behaviour," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-12, July.
    10. Lisa R. Anderson & Charles A. Holt & Katri K. Sieberg & Beth A. Freeborn, 2022. "An Experimental Study of Strategic Voting and Accuracy of Verdicts with Sequential and Simultaneous Voting," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-28, March.
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    12. André de Palma & Gordon M. Myers & Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou, 2020. "Models of Imperfect Public Choice," Department of Economics Working Papers 2020-18, McMaster University.
    13. Bellani, Luna & Ceolotto, Stefano & Elsner, Benjamin & Pestel, Nico, 2021. "Air Pollution Affects Decision-Making: Evidence from the Ballot Box," IZA Discussion Papers 14718, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    majority rule; supermajority; risk aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

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