We consider a model in which voters over time receive more information about their preferences concerning an irreversible social decision. Voters can either implement the project in the first period, or they can postpone the decision to the second period. We analyze the effects of different majority rules. Individual first period voting behavior may become "less conservative" under supermajority rules, and it is even possible that a project is implemented in the first period under a supermajority rule that would not be implemented under simple majority rule. We characterize the optimal majority rule, which is a supermajority rule. In contrast to individual investment problems, society may be better off if the option to postpone the decision did not exist. These results are qualitatively robust to natural generalizations of our model.
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.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University in its series Working Papers with number
338.
Length: Date of creation: 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:338
Contact details of provider: Postal: via Rontgen, 1 - 20136 Milano (Italy) Phone: 0039-02-58363301 Fax: 0039-02-58363302 Web page: http://www.igier.unibocconi.it/
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Melissa Fiorucci).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)