Attanasi, Giuseppe Marco, Corazzini, Luca and Passarelli, Francesco (2010) Voting as a Lottery. TSE Working Paper, n. 09-116

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Abstract

Voting is a lottery in which an individual who is uncertain about
how the others vote wins if she belongs to the majority or loses if she
falls into the minority. The risk of losing can be reduced by increasing
the majority threshold. This however has the negative effect of also
lowering the chance to win. We find that an individual prefers higher
majority thresholds when she is more risk averse, less powerful, or less
optimistic about the chance that others will vote like her. De facto,
raising the majority threshold is a form of protection against the higher
risk of being tyrannized by an unfavorable majority.
We include these preferences for majority thresholds in a Nash
bargaining game that describes constitutional negotiations over voting
rules. Individuals that largely avert the risk of being tyrannized
behave reluctantly during negotiations, and succeed in getting higher
protection through a threshold raise.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Language: English
Date: March 2010
Uncontrolled Keywords: majority rule, supermajority, risk aversion
JEL Classification: D72 - Economic Models of Political Processes - Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: TSE-R (Toulouse)
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 18 Jan 2012 06:00
Last Modified: 02 Apr 2021 15:36
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:22207
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/3250
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