IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/huj/dispap/dp317.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

One Team Must Win, the Other Need Only Not Lose: An Experimental Study of an Asymmetric Participation Game

Author

Listed:
  • Gary Bornstein
  • Tamar Kugler
  • Shmuel Zamir

Abstract

Consider a parliamentary committee with an equal number of coalition and opposition members. The opposition needs a strict majority to pass a motion, whereas for the coalition a tie is sufficient to block the motion and maintain the status quo. Passing or blocking the motion is a public good shared equally by all members of the winning group, and voting is voluntary and costly. The members of which group are more likely to vote? To answer this question, we studied an asymmetric participation game where a tie favors one prespecified group over the other. The theoretical analysis of this game yielded two qualitatively different predictions, one in which members of the coalition are slightly more likely to participate than members of the opposition, and another in which members of the opposition are much more likely to participate than members of the coalition. The experimental results clearly support the first prediction.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Bornstein & Tamar Kugler & Shmuel Zamir, 2003. "One Team Must Win, the Other Need Only Not Lose: An Experimental Study of an Asymmetric Participation Game," Discussion Paper Series dp317, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
  • Handle: RePEc:huj:dispap:dp317
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ratio.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/publications/dp317.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Selten, Reinhard, 1991. "Evolution, learning, and economic behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 3-24, February.
    2. Thomas Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1983. "A strategic calculus of voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 7-53, January.
    3. Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 1996. "Why people vote: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 417-442, August.
    4. Gary Bornstein, 2002. "Intergroup conflict: Individual, group and collective interests," Discussion Paper Series dp297, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2010. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 700-717, July.
    2. Jingjing Zhang, 2012. "Communication in asymmetric group competition over public goods," ECON - Working Papers 069, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    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. Martorana, Marco F. & Mazza, Isidoro, 2012. "Adaptive voting: an empirical analysis of participation and choice," MPRA Paper 36165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Martorana, Marco & Mazza, Isidoro, 2010. "Satisfaction and adaptation in voting behavior: an empirical exploration," DEMQ Working Paper Series 2010/6, University of Catania, Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    3. Martorana, Marco Ferdinando, 2011. "Voting Behaviour in a dynamic perspective: a survey," MPRA Paper 37592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Arthur J. H. C. Schram, 2008. "Experimental Public Choice," Springer Books, in: Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, chapter 32, pages 579-591, Springer.
    5. Jingjing Zhang, 2012. "Communication in asymmetric group competition over public goods," ECON - Working Papers 069, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Levine, David K. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2007. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 143-158, February.
    7. Igerseim, Herrade & Baujard, Antoinette & Laslier, Jean-François, 2016. "La question du vote. Expérimentations en laboratoire et In Situ," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 92(1-2), pages 151-189, Mars-Juin.
    8. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2010. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 700-717, July.
    9. Yen Kuo & Joseph Tao-yi Wang, 2014. "Special Section: Experiments on Learning, Methods, and Voting," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 387-400, August.
    10. Marcelo Tyszler & Arthur Schram, 2016. "Information and strategic voting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 360-381, June.
    11. Bornstein, Gary & Winter, Eyal & Goren, Harel, 1996. "Experimental study of repeated team-games," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 629-639, December.
    12. Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 1996. "Why people vote: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 417-442, August.
    13. John Duffy & Margit Tavits, 2008. "Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 603-618, July.
    14. Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2000. "An Explanation of Anomalous Behavior in Binary-Choice Games: Entry, Voting, Public Goods, and the Volunteers' Dilemma," Virginia Economics Online Papers 328, University of Virginia, Department of Economics.
    15. Cason, Timothy N. & Mui, Vai-Lam, 2005. "Uncertainty and resistance to reform in laboratory participation games," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 708-737, September.
    16. Cesar Martinelli & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2017. "Communication and Information in Games of Collective Decision: A Survey of Experimental Results," Working Papers 1065, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    17. Robalo, Pedro & Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2017. "Other-regarding preferences, in-group bias and political participation: An experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 130-154.
    18. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2011. "Perfect-Substitutes, Best-Shot, and Weakest-Link Contests between Groups," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 27, pages 5-32.
    19. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01136390 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Pedro Robalo, 2021. "Political Mobilization in the Laboratory: The Role of Norms and Communication," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-40, March.
    21. Melis Kartal, 2015. "Laboratory elections with endogenous turnout: proportional representation versus majoritarian rule," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 366-384, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    strategic decision making; intergroup competition; voting behavior; participation games;
    All these keywords.

    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:huj:dispap:dp317. 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: Michael Simkin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crihuil.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.