IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v69y1975i03p918-918_24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Paradox of Minimax Regret

Author

Listed:
  • Beck, Nathaniel

Abstract

The introduction of decision making under uncertainty by Ferejohn and Fiorina is an interesting addition to the literature on rational theories of citizen participation. Decision making under uncertainty assumes, however, that the actor has no knowledge of the probabilities of the various outcomes; this is obviously no more true than the assumption of perfect information about these probabilities made in the decision making under risk model. Voters have some, but not perfect, information about the probabilities of at least some of the different possible outcomes. Specifically, let us look at the two-party case. In Ferejohn's notation, (p 3 + p 4) is the probability of an individual's vote making a difference. We might expect a rational citizen to know that this probability is at most minuscule, even if he cannot calculate its exact value.

Suggested Citation

  • Beck, Nathaniel, 1975. "The Paradox of Minimax Regret," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 918-918, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:69:y:1975:i:03:p:918-918_24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400243761/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ming Li & Dipjyoti Majumdar, 2010. "A Psychologically Based Model of Voter Turnout," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(5), pages 979-1002, October.
    2. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1200, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    3. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1185, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Herrmann, Oliver & Jong-A-Pin, Richard & Schoonbeek, Lambert, 2019. "A prospect-theory model of voter turnout," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 362-373.
    5. repec:pri:cepsud:196farber is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1200, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    7. Douglas D. Roscoe, 2014. "Yes, Raise My Taxes: Property Tax Cap Override Elections," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(1), pages 145-164, March.
    8. Henry S. Farber, 2010. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," NBER Working Papers 16160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1185, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    10. Mihai UNGUREANU & Andra ROESCU, 2015. "Economic models of voting: an empirical study on the electoral behavior in Romanian 2012 parliamentary elections," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(3(604), A), pages 63-74, Autumn.
    11. Farber, Henry S, 2010. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," IZA Discussion Papers 5033, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Fred Thompson, 1982. "Closeness counts in horseshoes and dancing ... and elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 305-316, January.
    13. repec:agr:journl:v:3(604):y:2015:i:3(604):p:63-74 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. T. Tideman, 1985. "Remorse, elation, and the paradox of voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 103-106, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:69:y:1975:i:03:p:918-918_24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.