IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v108y2018p33-37.html

Quadratic Voting: How Mechanism Design Can Radicalize Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Steven P. Lalley
  • E. Glen Weyl

Abstract

Can mechanism design save democracy? We propose a simple design that offers a chance: individuals pay for as many votes as they wish using a number of "voice credits" in the votes they buy. Only quadratic cost induces marginal costs linear in votes purchased and thus welfare optimality if individuals' valuation of votes is proportional to their value of changing the outcome. A variety of analysis and evidence suggests that this still-nascent mechanism has significant promise to robustly correct the failure of existing democracies to incorporate intensity of preference and knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven P. Lalley & E. Glen Weyl, 2018. "Quadratic Voting: How Mechanism Design Can Radicalize Democracy," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 33-37, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:108:y:2018:p:33-37
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20181002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20181002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=uWBwyjgcDnLwVzSYyb_4QgvoiOsghO6y
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=TUeDd2uSdlIQRemm1JvdVddSP_jZfoPd
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:aea:apandp:v:108:y:2018:p:33-37. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.