IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usg/econwp/202106.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quantifying Vote Trading Through Network Reciprocity

Author

Listed:
  • Guerrero, Omar
  • Matter, Ulrich

Abstract

Building on the concept of reciprocity in directed weighted networks, we propose a framework to study legislative vote trading. We first discuss the conditions to quantify vote trading empirically. We then illustrate how a simple empirical framework—complementary to existing approaches—can facilitate the discovery and measurement of vote trading in roll-call data. The application of the suggested procedure preserves the micro-structure of trades between individual legislators, shedding light on, so far, unstudied aspects of vote trading. Validation is provided via Monte Carlo simulation of the legislative process (with and without vote trading). Applications to two major studies in the field provide richer, yet consistent evidence on vote trading in US politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Guerrero, Omar & Matter, Ulrich, 2021. "Quantifying Vote Trading Through Network Reciprocity," Economics Working Paper Series 2106, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2021:06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-2106.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Riker, William H. & Brams, Steven J., 1973. "The Paradox of Vote Trading," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1235-1247, December.
    2. Peltzman, Sam, 1984. "Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 181-210, April.
    3. Edwin Haefele, 1970. "Coalitions, minority representation, and vote-trading probabilities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 75-90, March.
    4. Peter Bernholz, 1974. "Logrolling, Arrow‐Paradox And Decision Rules ‐A Generalization ," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 49-62, January.
    5. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    6. Tullock, Gordon, 1970. "A Simple Algebraic Logrolling Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 419-426, June.
    7. Stratmann, Thomas, 1992. "The Effects of Logrolling on Congressional Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1162-1176, December.
    8. Alessandra Casella & Thomas Palfrey, 2019. "Trading Votes for Votes. A Dynamic Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 631-652, March.
    9. Wilson, Robert, 1969. "An Axiomatic Model of Logrolling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 331-341, June.
    10. Raya Kardasheva, 2013. "Package Deals in EU Legislative Politics," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(4), pages 858-874, October.
    11. Richard McKelvey & Peter Ordeshook, 1980. "Vote trading: An experimental study," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 151-184, January.
    12. Wang, Cheng & Lizardo, Omar & Hachen, David & Strathman, Anthony & Toroczkai, Zoltã N & Chawla, Nitesh V., 2013. "A dyadic reciprocity index for repeated interaction networks," Network Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 31-48, April.
    13. Lauren Cohen & Christopher J. Malloy, 2014. "Friends in High Places," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 63-91, August.
    14. Kau, James B & Rubin, Paul H, 1979. "Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 365-384, October.
    15. Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas & Turban, Sébastien, 2014. "Vote trading with and without party leaders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 115-128.
    16. Esteves, Rui & Geisler Mesevage, Gabriel, 2017. "The Rise of New Corruption: British MPs during the Railway Mania of 1845," CEPR Discussion Papers 12182, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Peter Bernholz, 1978. "On the stability of logrolling outcomes in stochastic games," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 65-82, January.
    18. Eckel, Catherine & Holt, Charles A, 1989. "Strategic Voting in Agenda-Controlled Committee Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 763-773, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Omar A. Guerrero & Ulrich Matter, 2016. "Revealing the Anatomy of Vote Trading," Papers 1611.01381, arXiv.org.
    2. Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2021. "Trading votes for votes: A laboratory study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 1-26.
    3. Casella, Alessandra & Turban, Sébastien, 2014. "Democracy undone. Systematic minority advantage in competitive vote markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 47-70.
    4. Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas & Turban, Sébastien, 2014. "Vote trading with and without party leaders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 115-128.
    5. Mario Gilli & Yuan Li & Jiwei Qian, 2018. "Logrolling under fragmented authoritarianism: theory and evidence from China," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 197-214, April.
    6. Alexander William Salter & Andrew T. Young, 2018. "Medieval representative assemblies: collective action and antecedents of limited government," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 171-192, June.
    7. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    8. Nikolas Tsakas & Dimitrios Xefteris & Nicholas Ziros, 2021. "Vote Trading in Power-Sharing Systems: A Laboratory Investigation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1849-1882.
    9. Stadelmann, David & Torrens, Gustavo, 2020. "Who is the ultimate boss of legislators: Voters, special interest groups or parties?," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Alessandra Casella & Antonin Macé, 2021. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 57-86, August.
    11. Potters, Jan & Sloof, Randolph, 1996. "Interest groups: A survey of empirical models that try to assess their influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-442, November.
    12. Reed, W Robert & Schansberg, D. Eric & Wilbanks, James & Zhu, Zhen, 1998. "The Relationship between Congressional Spending and Tenure with an Application to Term Limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(1-2), pages 85-104, January.
    13. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2020. "Agenda Control And Reciprocity In Sequential Voting Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1813-1829, October.
    14. May Tajima & Niall M. Fraser, 2001. "Logrolling Procedure for Multi-Issue Negotiation," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 217-235, May.
    15. B. Chupp, 2014. "Political interaction in the senate: estimating a political “spatial” weights matrix and an application to lobbying behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 521-538, September.
    16. Crombez, Christophe, 2000. "Spatial models of logrolling in the European Union," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 707-737, November.
    17. Casella, Alessandra & Macé, Antonin, 2020. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15201, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Lehmann-Waffenschmidt, Marco & Reina, Livia, 2003. "Coalition formation in multilateral negotiations with a potential for logrolling: An experimental analysis of negotiators' cognition processes," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 17/03, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    19. Dennis Mueller & Geoffrey Philpotts & Jaroslav Vanek, 1972. "The social gains from exchanging votes: A simulation approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 55-79, September.
    20. Paul Poast, 2013. "Issue linkage and international cooperation: An empirical investigation," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(3), pages 286-303, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vote trading; roll-call voting; networks; reciprocity; US Congress;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2021:06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vwasgch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.