Using the voting procedure proposed by Baron (1996), the consequences are examined of changing the majority required to change legislation. When the majority required is greater than fifty percent, and when voters behave strategically, the first policy proposed (on a stationary equilibrium path) is never defeated subsequently. Which policy gets proposed first depends on which voter gets to make the first proposal. But increasing the required majority induces a mean–preserving spread on the distribution of these policies, if voters' types are distributed symmetrically. Thus before the voting procedure begins, voters would prefer unanimously to see the required majority reduced. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2003
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.