Strategic Vote Trading in Power Sharing Systems

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xefteris, Dimitrios; Ziros, Nicholas
• 署名单位: University of Cyprus
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20150254
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 76-94
• 关键词: proportional representation; electoral systems; equilibrium; MARKET; MODEL; COMPETITION; ELECTIONS; outcomes

摘要

This paper studies decentralized vote trading in a power sharing system that follows the rules of strategic market games. In particular, we study a two-party election in which prior to the voting stage, voters are free to trade votes for money. Voters hold private information about both their ordinal and cardinal preferences, whereas their utilities are proportionally increasing in the vote share of their favorite party. In this framework, we prove generic existence of a unique full trade equilibrium (an equilibrium in which nobody refrains from vote trading). Moreover, we argue that vote trading in such systems unambiguously improves voters' welfare.