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Participation quorums in costly meetings

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  • Sabine Flamand
  • Orestis Troumpounis

Abstract

Meetings of shareholders, societies, and clubs often require a minimal participation quorum. In the absence of a quorum, no valid decisions can be made; thus, decisions are postponed to a later meeting. This paper examines the effect of such quorum constraints on both individual behavior and collective outcomes in a model of costly meetings. We show that when a binding quorum constraint delivers an immediate decision, it also induces a welfare loss with respect to the outcome that prevails when no quorum applies, potentially including policy distortions. When the quorum requirement is high and causes the decision to be postponed, the number of participants in the (second) meeting may decrease with respect to the zero-quorum rule. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Sabine Flamand & Orestis Troumpounis, 2014. "Participation quorums in costly meetings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 53-62, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:159:y:2014:i:1:p:53-62
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-012-0013-2
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    Cited by:

    1. Matveenko, Andrei & Valei, Azamat & Vorobyev, Dmitriy, 2022. "Participation quorum when voting is costly," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Benoit S Y Crutzen & Sabine Flamand, 2021. "Leaders, Factions and Electoral Success," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-041/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Crutzen, Benoît S.Y. & Flamand, Sabine, 2023. "Leaders, factions and the determinants of electoral success," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Mamageishvili, Akaki & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Large elections and interim turnout," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 175-210.
    5. Dmitriy Vorobyev & Azamat Valei & Andrei Matveenko, 2023. "Approval vs. Participation Quorums," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_438, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Quorum; Costly meetings; Committees; Participation; D71;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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