Logrolling affects the relative performance of majority and unanimity rule

Liza Charroin () and Christoph Vanberg
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Liza Charroin: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Christoph Vanberg: Universität Heidelberg [Heidelberg] = Heidelberg University

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: We consider a committee facing binary decisions on a number of proposals. If members vote sincerely and payoffs are symmetrically distributed, we show analytically that simple majority rule is the best q-majority rule in an aggregate or expected payoff sense. We argue that this (well known) pattern changes systematically if the committee faces multiple decisions and members engage in logrolling deals. In a simulation exercise, we find that unanimity rule outperforms majority rule when the number of proposals considered is large enough. We complement our analysis with a laboratory experiment designed to investigate whether human subjects engage in the logrolling deals assumed in our simulations. We find that deals associated with large negative externalities are less likely to arise than others, as are "complex" deals involving many voters or proposals. These results suggest that the impact of logrolling on the relative performance of the decision rules considered may be mitigated by cognitive constraints and other-regarding preferences.

Date: 2026-08-27
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05775772v1
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Published in Public Choice, 2026, ⟨10.1007/s11127-026-01450-1⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-05775772

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-026-01450-1

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