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Robust Rational Turnout

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Abstract

We establish that, except for a finite set of common costs of participation, all equilibria of a class of complete information voting games (as in Palfrey and Rosenthal (1983)) are regular. Thus, all the equilibria of these games (including those exhibiting high turnout rates) are robust to small but arbitrary payoff perturbations, and survive in nearby games with incomplete information about voting costs and/or about the fraction of supporters of the two candidates. We also show that all the equilibria of these complete information games exhibit minimal heterogeneity of behavior, so that the strategies of indifferent players are characterized by at most two probabilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Tasos Kalandrakis, 2006. "Robust Rational Turnout," Wallis Working Papers WP43, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:roc:wallis:wp43
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    Cited by:

    1. Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Pedro C. Magalhães & Christoph A. Vanberg, 2020. "What are the best quorum rules? A laboratory investigation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 215-231, October.
    2. Mavridis, Christos & Serena, Marco, 2021. "Complete information pivotal-voter model with asymmetric group size and asymmetric benefits," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    3. Nöldeke, Georg & Peña, Jorge, 2020. "Group size and collective action in a binary contribution game," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 42-51.
    4. Christos Mavridis & Marco Serena, 2019. "Complete Information Pivotal-Voter Model with Asymmetric Group Size and Asymmetric Beneï¬ ts," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2019-17_2, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Turnout; Regular Equilibrium.;

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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