An experimental study of voting with costly delay
An experimental study of voting with costly delay
A conclave is a voting mechanism in which a committee selects an alternative by voting until a sufficient supermajority is reached. We study experimentally welfare properties of simple three-voter conclaves with privately known preferences over two outcomes and waiting costs. The resulting game is a form of multiplayer war of attrition. Our key finding is that, consistent with theoretical predictions, when voters are ex ante heterogeneous in terms of the intensity of their preferences the conclave leads to efficiency gains relative to simple majority voting. We also compare welfare properties of a static versus a dynamic version of a conclave. When social cost of waiting is taken into account, the dynamic conclave is superior in terms of welfare than its static version.
voting, supermajority, intensity of preferences, war of attrition
1-12
Kwiek, Maksymilian
84ba7dab-b54b-4d22-8cf3-817b2a2077cf
Marreiros, Helia
98fa5fe4-bdb6-4737-8a82-69dc3d1b031c
Vlassopoulos, Michael
2d557227-958c-4855-92a8-b74b398f95c7
Kwiek, Maksymilian
84ba7dab-b54b-4d22-8cf3-817b2a2077cf
Marreiros, Helia
98fa5fe4-bdb6-4737-8a82-69dc3d1b031c
Vlassopoulos, Michael
2d557227-958c-4855-92a8-b74b398f95c7
Kwiek, Maksymilian, Marreiros, Helia and Vlassopoulos, Michael
(2016)
An experimental study of voting with costly delay.
Economics Letters, .
(doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2015.12.019).
Abstract
A conclave is a voting mechanism in which a committee selects an alternative by voting until a sufficient supermajority is reached. We study experimentally welfare properties of simple three-voter conclaves with privately known preferences over two outcomes and waiting costs. The resulting game is a form of multiplayer war of attrition. Our key finding is that, consistent with theoretical predictions, when voters are ex ante heterogeneous in terms of the intensity of their preferences the conclave leads to efficiency gains relative to simple majority voting. We also compare welfare properties of a static versus a dynamic version of a conclave. When social cost of waiting is taken into account, the dynamic conclave is superior in terms of welfare than its static version.
Text
EL_Resubmission.pdf
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 22 December 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 12 January 2016
Keywords:
voting, supermajority, intensity of preferences, war of attrition
Organisations:
Economics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 385515
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/385515
ISSN: 0165-1765
PURE UUID: 5d96d922-6d75-46ad-a5d9-8d3bd89cbd51
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Date deposited: 20 Jan 2016 13:34
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:23
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Author:
Helia Marreiros
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