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Uncertainty and resistance to reform in laboratory participation games

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  • Cason, Timothy N.
  • Mui, Vai-Lam

Abstract

This paper presents a participation game experiment to study the impact of uncertainty and costly political participation on the incidence of reform. Fernandez and Rodrik (1991) show that uncertainty about who will ultimately gain or lose as a result of a reform can prevent its adoption. We introduce intra-group conflict into this framework by incorporating costly political participation, which creates a natural incentive for free-riding on fellow group members’ efforts to influence policy outcomes. An agent, however, may still be willing to participate if her participation is likely to affect the policy outcome given the probabilities of participation by others. Our experimental findings show that uncertainty reduces the incidence of reform even with costly political participation, and that an increase in the cost of participation reduces the participation of all agents, regardless of whether they belong to the majority and minority. This second result cannot be reconciled with the standard mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, but is consistent with the quantal response equilibrium.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal European Journal of Political Economy.

Volume (Year): 21 (2005)
Issue (Month): 3 (September)
Pages: 708-737

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Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:21:y:2005:i:3:p:708-737

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544

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References

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  1. Smith, Vernon L, 1985. "Experimental Economics: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 264-72, March.
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  5. Cheng Leonard K. & Zhu Min, 1995. "Mixed-Strategy Nash Equilibrium Based upon Expected Utility and Quadratic Utility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 139-150, May.
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  23. Timothy N. Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 2003. "Testing Political Economy Models of Reform in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 208-212, May.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Marco Battaglini & Rebecca Morton & Thomas Palfrey, 2005. "The Swing Voter's Curse in the Laboratory," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000914, UCLA Department of Economics.
  2. Klor, Esteban F & Winter, Eyal, 2006. "On Public Opinion Polls and Voters' Turnout," CEPR Discussion Papers 5669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. Sourav Bhattacharya, 2011. "Compulsory and Voluntary Voting Mechanisms: An Experimental Study," Working Papers 456, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2012.
  4. Arthur J.H.C. Schram, 2002. "Experimental Public Choice," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-106/1, Tinbergen Institute.
  5. Timothy N. Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 2003. "Testing Political Economy Models of Reform in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 208-212, May.
  6. Jingjing Zhang, 2012. "Communication in asymmetric group competition over public goods," ECON - Working Papers 069, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
  7. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2004. "Neighborhood Information Exchange and Voter Participation: An Experimental Study," Working Paper Series in Economics 8, University of Cologne, Department of Economics, revised 29 Sep 2004.
  8. Coate, Stephen & Conlin, Michael & Moro, Andrea, 2008. "The performance of pivotal-voter models in small-scale elections: Evidence from Texas liquor referenda," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 582-596, April.
  9. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2007. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 014, University of Siena.
  10. David K. Levine & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2006. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000188, UCLA Department of Economics.
  11. David K Levine & Thomas R Palfrey, 2005. "The Paradox of Voter Participation: A Laboratory Study," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000968, David K. Levine.
  12. Marina Agranov & Jacob K. Goeree & Julian Romero & Leeat Yariv, 2012. "What makes voters turn out: the effects of polls and beliefs," ECON - Working Papers 067, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
  13. Jingjing Zhang, 2009. "Communication in Asymmetric Group Competition over Public Goods," Department of Economics Working Papers 2009-06, McMaster University.

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