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Implementation by Vote-Buying Mechanisms

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  • Jon X. Eguia
  • Dimitrios Xefteris

Abstract

Vote-buying mechanisms allow agents to express any level of support for their preferred alternative at an increasing cost. Focusing on large societies with wealth inequality, we prove that the family of binary social choice rules implemented by well-behaved vote-buying mechanisms is indexed by a single parameter, which determines the importance assigned to the agents' willingness to pay to affect outcomes and to the number of supporters for each alternative. This parameter depends solely on the elasticity of the cost function near its origin: as this elasticity decreases, the intensities of support matter relatively more for outcomes than the supporters' count.

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  • Jon X. Eguia & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2021. "Implementation by Vote-Buying Mechanisms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(9), pages 2811-2828, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:111:y:2021:i:9:p:2811-28
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190197
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    Cited by:

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    2. Anand Murugesan & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2023. "The Puzzling Practice of Paying “Cash for Votes”," CESifo Working Paper Series 10504, CESifo.
    3. Alessandra Casella & Antonin Macé, 2021. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 57-86, August.
    4. Vitalik Buterin & Zoë Hitzig & E. Glen Weyl, 2019. "A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5171-5187, November.
    5. Moreno-Cruz, Juan & Harding, Anthony, 2023. "A Unifying Theory of Foreign Intervention in Domestic Climate Policy," RFF Working Paper Series 23-24, Resources for the Future.
    6. 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.
    7. Vragov, Roumen & Smith, Vernon, 2023. "A method for identifying parameterizations of the Compensation election and Quadratic voting that admit pure-strategy equilibria," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 7-16.
    8. Hans Gersbach, 2022. "New Forms of Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 10134, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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