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Bribing Voters

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Author Info
Ernesto Dal Bo
Abstract

We show how an outside party offering incentives to voters can manipulate at no cost collective decisions made through voting. Under influence, these decisions can become inefficient. Therefore, the market for policies may be more likely to fail than the markets for goods, because (democratic) politics involves influence and collective decisions to a greater extent than markets for goods do. We develop and use a model to analyze different incentive schemes, credibility situations, and payoff and information structures. We discuss implications for the efficiency of democracy, voting, lobbying, committee decision making, and legislatures.

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Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number 039.

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Date of creation: 2000
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Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:039

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Related research
Keywords: voting; lobbying; democracy; committees; capture; corruption;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation

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. Daniel Diermeier & Roger B. Myerson, 1999. "Bicameralism and Its Consequences for the Internal Organization of Legislatures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1182-1196, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Helpman, E. & Persson, T., 1998. "Lobbying and Legislative Bargaining," Papers 08-98, Tel Aviv.
    Other versions:
  3. Ilya R. Segal & Michael D. Whinston, 2000. "Naked Exclusion: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 296-309, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1987. "Contracts as a Barrier to Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 388-401, June.
  5. Alesina, Alberto & Spear, Stephen E., 1988. "An overlapping generations model of electoral competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 359-379, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Tullock, Gordon, 1998. "Reply to Guttman," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 215-218, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Ilya Segal, 1999. "Contracting With Externalities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 337-388, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Myerson, Roger B., 1998. "Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 111-131, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Alan S. Blinder, 1999. "Central Banking in Theory and Practice," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522608, December.
  10. 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.
  11. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1985. "Optimal Selling Strategies under Uncertainty for a Discriminating Monopolist When Demands Are Interdependent," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(2), pages 345-61, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Rasmusen, Eric & Ramseyer, J Mark, 1994. " Cheap Bribes and the Corruption Ban: A Coordination Game among Rational Legislators," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 78(3-4), pages 305-27, March.
  13. Spiegler, Ran, 2000. "Extracting Interaction-Created Surplus," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 142-162, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Morten Bennedsen & Sven E. Feldmann, 2002. "Lobbying Legislatures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 919-948, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Neeman, Zvika, 1999. "The Freedom to Contract and the Free-Rider Problem," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 685-703, October.
  16. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Christopher J. Waller, 2000. "Policy Boards And Policy Smoothing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(1), pages 305-339, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1997. "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1029-1058, September.
    Other versions:
  19. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Becker, Gary S, 1983. "A Theory of Competition among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Kai A. Konrad & Stergios Skaperdas, 2005. "Succession Rules and Leadership Rents," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. David Gill & Christine Lipsmeyer, 2005. "Soft money and hard choices: Why political parties might legislate against soft money donations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 411-438, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Console Battilana, Silvia & Shepsle, Kenneth, 2006. "Nominations for sale," MPRA Paper 1331, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  4. Silvia Console Battilana, 2007. "Uncovered Power: External Agenda Setting, Sophisticated Voting, and Transnational Lobbying," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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