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Can we devise mechanisms that allow voters to express the intensity of their preferences when monetary transfers are forbidden? Can minorities be decisive over those issues they feel very strongly about? As opposed to the usual voting system (one person – one decision – one vote), we propose a voting system where each agent is endowed with a fixed number of votes that can be distributed freely among a set of issues that need to be approved or dismissed. Its novelty relies on allowing voters to express the intensity of their preferences in a simple manner. This voting system is optimal in a well-defined sense: in a strategic setting with two voters, two issues and preference intensities uniformly and independently distributed across possible values, Qualitative Voting Pareto dominates Majority Rule and, moreover, achieves the only exante optimal (incentive-compatible) allocation. The result also holds true with three voters, as long as the voters' preferences towards the issues differ sufficiently.

Can we devise mechanisms that allow voters to express the intensity of their preferences when monetary transfers are forbidden? Can minorities be decisive over those issues they feel very strongly about? As opposed to the usual voting system (one person -- one decision -- one vote), we propose a voting system where each agent is endowed with a fixed number of votes that can be distributed freely among a set of issues that need to be approved or dismissed. Its novelty relies on allowing voters to express the intensity of their preferences in a simple manner. This voting system is optimal in a well-defined sense: in a strategic setting with two voters, two issues and preference intensities uniformly and independently distributed across possible values, Qualitative Voting Pareto dominates Majority Rule and, moreover, achieves the only exante optimal (incentive-compatible) allocation. The result also holds true with three voters, as long as the voters' preferences towards the issues differ sufficiently. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

AbstractHow do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals' degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting, conformist voters have an added incentive to 'follow the pack' and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a representative sample of the UK population and the second a lab experiment in Canada. Both studies confirm our hypothesis. These findings highlight the importance of taking individuals' level of conformity into account when explaining their decision to vote or abstain.

How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals' degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting, conformist voters have an added incentive to 'follow the pack' and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a representative sample of the UK population and the second a lab experiment in Canada. Both studies confirm our hypothesis. These findings highlight the importance of taking individuals' level of conformity into account when explaining their decision to vote or abstain.

This article explores an agency model in which voters learn about both an incumbent and an opponent. They observe the incumbent's policy record and update their beliefs about his opponent via a campaign. Although the former is relatively more informative, it can be costly for the voter to learn about the incumbent from her policy record. This is because policy reforms, which allow a voter to learn an incumbent's ability, are risky and can leave the voter worse off. Then the voter may prefer the incumbent to take safer actions. The efficient level of reform – the one preferred by the voter – balances the value of learning with the expected policy costs/benefits. In a world where the opponent's campaign is uninformative, reform can be too low due to the incumbent's fear of failure. Or it can be too high: the incumbent may gamble on success. This article shows that the presence of an opponent who can reveal information via a campaign exacerbates these inefficiencies. An incumbent who anticipates the effect of an opponent's campaign on voter beliefs is more likely to make inefficient policy choices. Further, such campaigns can lead to an overall welfare loss when they reveal little about the opponent's ability and yet have an impact on the incumbent's policy choice.

Institutions have the power to limit a government's policy options. Policy restrictions are often used as solutions to coordination failures or time inconsistency problems. However, policy constraints can have significant drawbacks and these disadvantages have, to date, been overlooked in the literature. When institutional constraints tie a government's hands, citizens will have less incentive to become informed about politics and participate in collective decision-making. This is because policy restrictions lower the private returns of political information. A fiscal policy restriction, for example, may decrease redistribution by lowering a poorer voters' acquisition of political information. We illustrate our theoretical findings with numerical simulations and find that in one in three cases these policy restrictions make poorer voters worse off.

Whistle-blowing is usually regarded as a way to identify abuse and wrongdoing on the part of governments and corporations. In this paper we show how, at a micro level, whistle-blowing can be used as a designer tool to prevent opportunistic behavior, that takes the form of collusion or blackmail, on the part of members of a simple hierarchical structure. We focus on a three layered principal-supervisor-agent structure and show how the principal can use whistle-blowing as a way to prevent the supervisor and the agent from colluding to the detriment of the principal. To understand our mechanism we need to explicitly define the penalty a party has to incur for walking away from a collusive agreement. Rewarding whistle-blowing, creates incentives for the uninformed colluding party to walk out of the side deal and report to the principal that collusion took place. This threat clearly reduces the informed party's incentive to participate in side deals. It also serves as a potential blackmail threat between the colluding parties. However, careful use of whistle-blowing allows the principal to eliminate opportunities for blackmail.