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An Experimental Study of Storable Votes

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Author Info
Alessandra Casella
Andrew Gelman
Thomas R. Palfrey

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Abstract

The storable votes mechanism is a method of voting for committees that meet periodically to consider a series of binary decisions. Each member is allocated a fixed budget of votes to be cast as desired over the multiple decisions. Voters are induced to spend more votes on those decisions that matter to them most, shifting the ex ante probability of winning away from decisions they value less and towards decisions they value more, typically generating welfare gains over standard majority voting with non-storable votes. The equilibrium strategies have a very intuitive feature---the number of votes cast must be monotonic in the voter's intensity of preferences---but are otherwise difficult to calculate, raising questions of practical implementation. In our experiments, realized efficiency levels were remarkably close to theoretical equilibrium predictions, while subjects adopted monotonic but off-equilibrium strategies. We are lead to conclude that concerns about the complexity of the game may have limited practical relevance.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9982.

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Date of creation: Sep 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9982

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H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

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References listed on IDEAS
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.:
  1. Alessandra Casella, 2002. "Storable votes," Discussion Papers 0102-71, Columbia University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Brams, S.J., 1995. "Game Theory and Emotions," Working Papers 95-23, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University. [Downloadable!]
  3. Richard Mckelvey & Thomas Palfrey, 1998. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Extensive Form Games," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 9-41, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Ferejohn, John A., 1974. "Sour Notes on the Theory of Vote Trading," Working Papers 41, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
  5. Moulin, H, 1982. "Voting with Proportional Veto Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 145-62, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Philipson, Tomas J & Snyder, James M, Jr, 1996. " Equilibrium and Efficiency in an Organized Vote Market," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 89(3-4), pages 245-65, December.
  7. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Paul Milgrom & Robert Weber, 1981. "Distributional Strategies for Games with Incomplete Information," Discussion Papers 428R, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
  9. Mueller, Dennis C., 1978. "Voting by veto," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 57-75, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. McKelvey, Richard D. & Palfrey, Thomas R. & Weber, Roberto A., 2000. "The effects of payoff magnitude and heterogeneity on behavior in 2 x 2 games with unique mixed strategy equilibria," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 523-548, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Tilman Börgers, 2001. "Costly Voting," NajEcon Working Paper Reviews 625018000000000232, www.najecon.org. [Downloadable!]
  12. Martin J. Osborne & Jeffrey S. Rosenthal & Matthew A. Turner, 2000. "Meetings with Costly Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 927-943, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Tilman Borgers, 2004. "Costly Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 57-66, March. [Downloadable!]
  14. d'Aspremont, Claude & Cremer, Jacques & Gerard-Varet, Louis-Andre, 1990. "Incentives and the existence of Pareto-optimal revelation mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 233-254, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(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.)

  1. Alessandra Casella & Thomas Palfrey & Raymond Riezman, 2006. "Minorities and Storable Votes," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000199, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Hitoshi Matsushima & Koichi Miyazaki & Nobuyuki Yagi, 2006. "Role of Linking Mechanisms in Multitask Agency with Hidden Information," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-401, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo. [Downloadable!]
  3. David K. Levine & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2006. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000188, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Carrillo, Juan D. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2006. "The compromise game: Two-sided adverse selection in the laboratory," Working Papers 1259, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
  5. Casella, Alessandra, 2008. "Storable Votes and Agenda Order Control. Theory and Experiments," CEPR Discussion Papers 7050, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Pedro Dal Bó & Andrew Foster & Louis Putterman, 2008. "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy," NBER Working Papers 13999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Alessandra Casella & Shuky Ehrenberg & Andrew Gelman & Jie Shen, 2008. "Protecting Minorities in Binary Elections: A Test of Storable Votes Using Field Data," NBER Working Papers 14103, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Juan D Carrillo & Thomas R Palfrey, 2007. "The Compromise Game: Two-Sided Adverse Selection in the Laboratory," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001463, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  9. Thomas R. Palfrey, 2006. "The Compromise Game: Two-sided Adverse Selection in the Laboratory," IEPR Working Papers 06.60, Institute of Economic Policy Research (IEPR). [Downloadable!]
  10. Alessandra Casella, 2008. "Storable Votes and Agenda Order Control Theories and Experiments," Discussion Papers 0809-07, Columbia University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. Juan D. Carrillo & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2007. "The Compromise Game: Two-sided Adverse Selection in the Laboratory," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000754, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Alessandra Casella & Andrew Gelman, 2005. "A Simple Scheme to Improve the Efficiency of Referenda," Economics Working Papers 0060, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Giuseppe Attanasi, Luca Corazzini, Nikolaos Georgantzis, Francesco Passarelli., 2009. "Risk Aversion, Over-Confidence and Private Information as Determinants of Majority Thresholds," ISLA Working Papers 34, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  14. Carrillo, Juan D & Palfrey, Thomas R, 2007. "The Compromise Game: Two-sided Adverse Selection in the Laboratory," CEPR Discussion Papers 6103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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