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Voting in the limelight

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  • Ronen Gradwohl

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

When committees make decisions, voting rules are coupled with one of three disclosure rules: open voting, in which each committee member’s individual vote is revealed; anonymous voting, in which only an anonymized tally is publicized; and secret voting, in which only the outcome is disclosed. I focus on strategic voters who have a preference for strategic ambiguity, and show that the amount of disclosure may have a non-monotonic effect on both the accuracy of the decision and the welfare of the voters. In particular, anonymous voting can yield both lower accuracy and higher welfare than both open and secret voting.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronen Gradwohl, 2018. "Voting in the limelight," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(1), pages 65-103, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:66:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s00199-017-1054-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-017-1054-z
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    Cited by:

    1. Hans Gersbach & Stephan Imhof & Oriol Tejada, 2021. "Channeling the final say in politics: a simple mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 151-183, February.
    2. Fehrler, Sebastian & Hahn, Volker, 2020. "Committee Decision-Making under the Threat of Leaks," IZA Discussion Papers 13746, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Fehrler, Sebastian & Janas, Moritz, 2021. "Delegation to a Group," IZA Discussion Papers 14426, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Name-Correa, Alvaro J. & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2019. "Social pressure, transparency, and voting in committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Sebastian Fehrler & Moritz Janas, 2021. "Delegation to a Group," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3714-3743, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Committees; Voting; Transparency; Privacy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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