IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/theord/v55y2003i3p181-207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Super Majoritarianism and the Endowment Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Uriel Procaccia
  • Uzi Segal

Abstract

The American and some other constitutions entrench property rights by requiring super majoritarian voting as a condition for amending or revoking their own provisions. Following Buchanan and Tullock [The Calculus of Consent, Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor), 1962], this paper analyzes individuals' interests behind a veil of ignorance, and shows that under some standard assumptions, a (simple) majoritarian rule should be adopted. This result changes if one assumes that preferences are consistent with the behavioral phenomenon known as the "endowment effect." It then follows that (at least some) property rights are best defended by super majoritarian protection. The paper then shows that its theoretical results are consistent with a number of doctrines underlying American Constitutional Law.

Suggested Citation

  • Uriel Procaccia & Uzi Segal, 2003. "Super Majoritarianism and the Endowment Effect," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 181-207, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:55:y:2003:i:3:p:181-207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0040-5833/contents
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jack L. Knetsch & J. A. Sinden, 1984. "Willingness to Pay and Compensation Demanded: Experimental Evidence of an Unexpected Disparity in Measures of Value," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(3), pages 507-521.
    2. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    4. Ian Bateman & Alistair Munro & Bruce Rhodes & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1997. "A Test of the Theory of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 479-505.
    5. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    6. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. John C. Harsanyi, 1953. "Cardinal Utility in Welfare Economics and in the Theory of Risk-taking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61, pages 434-434.
    8. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226301532 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giuseppe Attanasi & Luca CORAZZINI & Nikolaos GEORGANTZIS & Francesco PASSARELLI, 2009. "Risk Aversion, Over-Confidence and Private Information as determinants of Majority Thresholds," LERNA Working Papers 09.26.302, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    2. Zhang, Xiaobin & Ye, Yanmei & Wang, Mengran & Yu, Zhenning & Luo, Jiaojiao, 2018. "The micro administrative mechanism of land reallocation in land consolidation: A perspective from collective action," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 547-558.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Zimmermann, Jacqueline M., 1998. "Buying and Selling Prices of Investments: Configural Weight Model of Interactions Predicts Violations of Joint Independence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 145-187, May.
    2. Roth, Gerrit, 2006. "Predicting the Gap between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Munich Dissertations in Economics 4901, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    3. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    4. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    5. Wakker, Peter P. & Zank, Horst, 2002. "A simple preference foundation of cumulative prospect theory with power utility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1253-1271, July.
    6. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jean-Louis Arcand & Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2005. "Tax Compliance and Rank Dependent Expected Utility," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 30(1), pages 57-69, June.
    9. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    10. Munro, Alistair & Sugden, Robert, 2003. "On the theory of reference-dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 407-428, April.
    11. Ulrich Schmidt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2008. "Third-generation prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 203-223, June.
    12. Eyal Ert & Ido Erev, 2010. "On the Descriptive Value of Loss Aversion in Decisions under Risk," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-056, Harvard Business School.
    13. Han Bleichrodt & Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2009. "Additive Utility in Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 863-873, May.
    14. Sudeep Bhatia & Graham Loomes & Daniel Read, 2021. "Establishing the laws of preferential choice behavior," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(6), pages 1324-1369, November.
    15. Schmidt, Ulrich & Zank, Horst, 2010. "Endogenous Prospect Theory," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 37536, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto & Peter P. Wakker, 2001. "Making Descriptive Use of Prospect Theory to Improve the Prescriptive Use of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(11), pages 1498-1514, November.
    17. Per Engström & Katarina Nordblom & Henry Ohlsson & Annika Persson, 2015. "Tax Compliance and Loss Aversion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 132-164, November.
    18. Schulz, Fabian & Schlereth, Christian & Mazar, Nina & Skiera, Bernd, 2015. "Advance payment systems: Paying too much today and being satisfied tomorrow," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 238-250.
    19. Zhao, Jinhua & Kling, Catherine L., 2001. "A new explanation for the WTP/WTA disparity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 293-300, December.
    20. Bélyácz, Iván & Kovács, Kármen, 2018. "A birtoklási hatás megnyilvánulásának háttere és következményei. A kilátáselmélet alkalmazása fogyasztási döntésekre [Background and consequences of the endowment effect. Applying prospect theory t," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 382-401.
    21. Pavlo Blavatskyy & Ganna Pogrebna, 2006. "Loss Aversion? Not with Half-a-Million on the Table!," IEW - Working Papers 274, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:55:y:2003:i:3:p:181-207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.