Equilibrium and Efficiency in an Organized Vote Market

Tomas Philipson and James Snyder

Public Choice, 1996, vol. 89, issue 3-4, 245-65

Abstract: The authors study an organized market for votes in which trade is directed by a market 'specialist.' This market mechanism always produces an equilibrium outcome and, whenever vote buying occurs, the alternative chosen is Pareto superior to the alternative that would be chosen without trade. The authors then characterize the equilibrium outcomes in a one-dimensional policy space and show that, if the distribution of ideal points is skewed enough, then the equilibrium with vote buying differs from the equilibrium without vote buying (the median ideal point). This difference reflects the ability of an intense minority to obtain a policy it prefers in exchange for side payments. Copyright 1996 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:89:y:1996:i:3-4:p:245-65

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().