Voting as a Lottery

Giuseppe Attanasi, Luca Corazzini, Francesco Passarelli
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Giuseppe Attanasi, Luca Corazzini, Francesco Passarelli: ISLA, Universita' Bocconi, Milano
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Giuseppe Attanasi, Francesco Passarelli and Luca Corazzini

No 28, ISLA Working Papers from ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy

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. Defacto, 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.

Keywords: majority rule; supermajority; risk aversion; weighted votes; constitutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D81 H11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2007-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Voting as a lottery (2017)
Working Paper: Voting as a lottery (2017)
Working Paper: Voting as a Lottery (2009)
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