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"While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

We examine the consequences of lobbying and vote buying, assuming this practice were allowed and free of stigma. Two lobbyists compete for the votes of legislators by offering up-front payments to the legislators in exchange for their votes. We analyze how the lobbyists budget constraints and legislators preferences determine the winner and the payments. When lobbyists are budget constrained then the preferences of all legislators can matter, and a lobbyists relative strength increases more steeply with a budget increase than with an increase of equal magnitude to the legislators original preferences for this lobbyists position. When lobbyists are not budget constrained then only the preferences of near median legislators matter and the preferences of these legislators and the budget enter equally in determining the winner. Adapted from the source document.

THIS PAPER EXAMINES ANOTHER IMPLICATION OF THE PROBABILISTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE POTENTIAL CHOICE OF THE INDIVIDUAL VOTER, AND THE ULTIMATE COLLECTIVE OUTCOME: THE MUTUALLY ADVANTAGEOUS OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE BUYING AND SELLING OF VOTES THAT MAY EMERGE AS THE PROBABILITIES OF INFLUENCE OVER COLLECTIVE OUTCOMES VARY. THE ANALYSIS IS INDIRECTLY RELATED TO THEORIES OF COALITION FORMATION.

In a recent paper, Banks (2000), adopting the framework of our model (Groseclose & Snyder 1996), derives several new & noteworthy results. In addition, he provides a counterexample to our proposition 4. Here we explain the error in our proposition but note that we can correct it easily if we invoke an additional assumption: In equilibrium the winning vote buyer constructs a nonflooded coalition, that is, she does not bribe every member of her coalition. We conclude with a brief discussion of the substantive implications of Banks's proposition 1; we note that it provides additional support for our general claim that minimal winning coalitions should be rare in a vote-buying game. 3 References. Adapted from the source document.

THIS REPLY ANSWERS ABRAHAM'S COMMENT ON THE PAPER, BUCHANAN AND LEE (1986). IT ACKNOWLEDGES AND APPRECIATES THE ATTENTION CALLED TO AN OVERSIGHT THEN STATES THAT ABRAHAM OVERSTATES THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE INFORMATION GENERATED BY THE STRUCTURE OF THE MODEL. THE MAIN POINT OF THE PAPER IS THAT THERE EXIST MUTUAL GAINS FROM VOTE TRADING THAT DO NOT DEPEND ON DIFFERENCES IN HOW PEOPLE ASSESS THE PROBABILITIES OF RANDOMLY CHOSEN INDIVIDUALS VOTING YES OR NO, OR DIFFERENCES IN HOW THEY VALUE BEING ON THE WINNING SIDE OF AN ELECTION. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THIS RESULT HOLDS UNDER OUR INITIAL ASSUMPTION THAT VOTE MARKETS ARE BLIND ON BOTH SIDES; I.E., NEITHER BUYER NOR SELLER KNOWS THE VOTING CHOICE OF THE OTHER.