IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v10y2019i2p25-d236869.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Majority Rule in Referenda

Author

Listed:
  • Qingqing Cheng

    (Department of Theory, Party School of Haimen Committee of CPC (Haimen Administration Institute), Haimen 226100, China)

  • Ming Li

    (1455 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Department of Economics, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada
    CIRANO, Montreal, QC H3A 2M8, Canada
    CIREQ, Montreal, QC H3T 1N8, Canada)

Abstract

Adopting the group turnout model of Herrera and Mattozzi, J. Eur. Econ. Assoc. 2010 , 8 , 838–871, we investigate direct democracy with supermajority rule and different preference intensities for two sides of a referendum: Reform versus status quo. Two parties spend money and effort to mobilize their voters. We characterize the set of pure strategy Nash equilibria. We investigate the optimal majority rule that maximizes voters’ welfare. Using an example, we show that the relationship between the optimal majority rule and the preference intensity is not monotonic—the optimal majority rule is initially decreasing and then increasing in the preference intensity of the status quo side. We also show that when the preference intensity of the status quo side is higher, the easiness to mobilize voters on the status quo side is lower, or the payoff that the reform party receives is higher, the optimal majority rule is more likely to be supermajority.

Suggested Citation

  • Qingqing Cheng & Ming Li, 2019. "Optimal Majority Rule in Referenda," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-23, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:10:y:2019:i:2:p:25-:d:236869
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/10/2/25/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/10/2/25/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Helios Herrera & Andrea Mattozzi, 2006. "Turnout and Quorum in Referenda," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000230, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Corazzini, Luca & Passarelli, Francesco, 2017. "Voting as a lottery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 129-137.
    3. Jörg L Spenkuch & David Toniatti, 2018. "Political Advertising and Election Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1981-2036.
    4. Helios Herrera & Andrea Mattozzi, 2010. "Quorum and Turnout in Referenda," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 838-871, June.
    5. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    6. Barry Nalebuff & Ron Shachar, 1999. "Follow the Leader: Theory and Evidence on Political Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 525-547, June.
    7. Dal Bo, Ernesto, 2006. "Committees with supermajority voting yield commitment with flexibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 573-599, May.
    8. Martinez-Vazquez,Jorge & Winer,Stanley L. (ed.), 2014. "Coercion and Social Welfare in Public Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107052789, January.
    9. Martin J. Osborne & Matthew A. Turner, 2010. "Cost Benefit Analyses versus Referenda," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(1), pages 156-187, February.
    10. Martinez-Vazquez,Jorge & Winer,Stanley L. (ed.), 2014. "Coercion and Social Welfare in Public Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107636897, January.
    11. Matthias Messner & Mattias K. Polborn, 2004. "Voting on Majority Rules," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 115-132.
    12. Snyder, James M, 1989. "Election Goals and the Allocation of Campaign Resources," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 637-660, May.
    13. Rae, Douglas W., 1969. "Decision-Rules and Individual Values in Constitutional Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 40-56, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Pathak, Seemantini & Chiu, Shih-Chi (Sana), 2020. "Firm-advisor ties and financial performance in the context of corporate divestiture," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 315-328.
    2. Cheffi, Walid & Kaleem Zahir-ul-Hassan, Muhammad & Omer Farooq, Muhammad & Baqrain, Abdelrahman & Mohamed Habib Mansour, Mourad, 2023. "Ethical leadership, management control systems and circular economy in SMEs in an emerging economy, the UAE," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. George Tridimas & Stanley L. Winer, 2018. "On the Definition and Nature of Fiscal Coercion," Carleton Economic Papers 18-09, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    2. Michael C. Munger, 2019. "Tullock and the welfare costs of corruption: there is a “political Coase Theorem”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 83-100, October.
    3. Troumpounis, Orestis, 2012. "On the distribution of public funding to political parties," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 367-370.
    4. William Keech & Michael Munger, 2015. "The anatomy of government failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 1-42, July.
    5. Giorgio Brosio, 2018. "Coercion and equity with centralization of government: how the unification of Italy impacted the southern regions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 235-264, December.
    6. Robert Scherf & Matthew Weinzierl, 2020. "Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit‐Based Taxation," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 385-410, June.
    7. Roger D. Congleton, 2020. "Governance by true believers: supreme duties with and without totalitarianism," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 111-141, March.
    8. Kovenock, Dan & Roberson, Brian, 2011. "Non-partisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts and policy outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 728-739.
    9. Stanley L. Winer, 2016. "The Political Economy of Taxation: Power, Structure, Redistribution," Carleton Economic Papers 16-15, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    10. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Maennig, Wolfgang, 2015. "Homevoters vs. leasevoters: A spatial analysis of airport effects," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 85-99.
    11. Felix Arnold & Ronny Freier & Magdalena Pallauf & David Stadelmann, 2015. "Voting for direct democratic participation: Evidence from an initiative election," CREMA Working Paper Series 2015-11, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    12. Florian Engl & Arno Riedl & Roberto Weber, 2021. "Spillover Effects of Institutions on Cooperative Behavior, Preferences, and Beliefs," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 261-299, November.
    13. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Endogenous Political Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 565-611.
    14. Stergios Skaperdas & Samarth Vaidya, 2020. "Why did pre-modern states adopt Big-God religions?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 373-394, March.
    15. Beat Hintermann & Thomas F. Rutherford, 2014. "Social Planning and Economic Coercion," CESifo Working Paper Series 5044, CESifo.
    16. Hans Peter Grüner & Thomas Tröger, 2019. "Linear Voting Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(6), pages 2037-2077, November.
    17. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Corazzini, Luca & Passarelli, Francesco, 2017. "Voting as a lottery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 129-137.
    18. Boadway,Robin & Cuff,Katherine, 2022. "Tax Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108949453, January.
    19. Giovanni Maggi & Massimo Morelli, 2006. "Self-Enforcing Voting in International Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1137-1158, September.
    20. Marina Bannikova & Artyom Jelnov & Pavel Jelnov, 2021. "The Number of Parties and Decision-Making in Legislatures," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-10, October.

    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:gam:jgames:v:10:y:2019:i:2:p:25-:d:236869. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.