Nber Working Paper Series Competitive Equilibrium in Markets for Votes
نویسندگان
چکیده
We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of Ex Ante Vote-Trading Equilibrium, identify weak sufficient conditions for existence, and construct one such equilibrium. We show that this equilibrium must always result in dictatorship and the market generates welfare losses, relative to simple majority voting, if the committee is large enough. We test the theoretical implications by implementing a competitive vote market in the laboratory using a continuous open-book multi-unit double auction. Alessandra Casella Department of Economics Columbia University New York, NY 10027 and NBER [email protected] Aniol Llorente-Saguer California Institute of Technology 1200 East California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 [email protected] Thomas R. Palfrey California Institute of Technology 1200 East California Blvd. 301A Baxer Hall Pasadena, CA 91125 [email protected] An online appendix is available at: http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w16315
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