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Sequential Voting with Abstention

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  • Battaglini, Marco

    (Princeton U)

Abstract

Dekel and Piccione (2000) have proven that information cascades do not necessarily affect the properties of information aggregation in sequential elections: under standard conditions, any symmetric equilibrium of a simultaneous voting mechanism is also an equilibrium of the correspondent sequential mechanism. We show that when voters can abstain, these results are sensitive to the introduction of an arbitrarily small cost of voting: the set of equilibria in the two mechanisms are generally disjoint; and the informative properties of the equilibrium sets can be ranked. If an appropriate q-rule is chosen, when the cost of voting is small the unique symmetric equilibrium of the simultaneous voting mechanism dominates all equilibria of the sequential mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Battaglini, Marco, 2004. "Sequential Voting with Abstention," Papers 05-19-2004, Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:prirpe:05-19-2004
    as

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    File URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~mbattagl/seqvot.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
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    3. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
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    7. Morton, Rebecca B. & Williams, Kenneth C., 1999. "Information Asymmetries and Simultaneous versus Sequential Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 51-67, March.
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    9. Thomas Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1983. "A strategic calculus of voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 7-53, January.
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    11. Eddie Dekel & Michele Piccione, 2000. "Sequential Voting Procedures in Symmetric Binary Elections," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 34-55, February.
    12. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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