Democracy Undone. Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote Markets

Alessandra Casella and Turban, Sébastien

No 9242, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We study the competitive equilibrium of a market for votes where voters can trade votes for a numeraire before making a decision via majority rule. The choice is binary and the number of supporters of either alternative is known. We identify a sufficient condition guaranteeing the existence of an ex ante equilibrium. In equilibrium, only the most intense voter on each side demands votes and each demand enough votes to alone control a majority. The probability of a minority victory is independent of the size of the minority and converges to one half, for any minority size, when the electorate is arbitrarily large. In a large electorate, the numerical advantage of the majority becomes irrelevant: democracy is undone by the market.

Keywords: Majority voting; Minority; Vote buying; Vote trading; Voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C62 C72 D70 D72 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
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: Democracy undone. Systematic minority advantage in competitive vote markets (2014)
Working Paper: Democracy Undone. Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote Markets (2012)
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