Trading votes for votes: A laboratory study

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Casella, Alessandra; Palfrey, Thomas R.
• 署名单位: Columbia University; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2020.10.004
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1-26
• 关键词: Voting; Vote trading; logrolling; experiments

摘要

Vote trading is ubiquitous in committees and legislatures, and yet we know very little about its properties. We explore this subject with a laboratory experiment. We propose a model of vote trading in which pairs of voters exchange votes whenever doing so is mutually advantageous. The resulting trading dynamics always converge to stable vote allocations-allocations where no further improving trades exist. The data show that stability has predictive power: vote allocations in the lab converge towards stable allocations, and individual vote holdings at the end of trading are in line with theoretical predictions. There is less support for the finer details of the trade-by-trade dynamics. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.