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Counting on My Vote Not Counting: Expressive Voting in Committees

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  • Boris Ginzburg
  • José-Alberto Guerra
  • Warn N. Lekfuangfu

Abstract

A committee chooses whether to approve a proposal that some members may consider ethical. Members who vote for the proposal receive expressive utility, and all pay a cost if the proposal is accepted. Committee members have different depths of reasoning. The model predicts that features that reduce the probability of being pivotal - namely, larger committee size, or a more restrictive voting rule - raise the share of votes for the proposal. A laboratory experiment with a charitable donation framing supports these results. Our structural estimation recovers the distributions of altruistic and expressive preferences, and of depth of reasoning, across individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Boris Ginzburg & José-Alberto Guerra & Warn N. Lekfuangfu, 2020. "Counting on My Vote Not Counting: Expressive Voting in Committees," Documentos CEDE 18250, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:018250
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    Cited by:

    1. Yves Breitmoser & Justin Valasek & Justin Mattias Valasek, 2023. "Why Do Committees Work?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10800, CESifo.
    2. Breitmoser, Yves & Valasek, Justin, 2023. "Why do committees work?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 18/2023, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    3. Fishman, Arthur & Klunover, Doron, 2024. "Costly expressive voting," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 99-104.
    4. Philippos Louis & Orestis Troumpounis & Nikolaos Tsakas & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2020. "Protest voting in the laboratory," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0247, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    5. Efrat Dressler & Yevgeny Mugerman, 2023. "Doing the Right Thing? The Voting Power Effect and Institutional Shareholder Voting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(4), pages 1089-1112, April.
    6. Dressler, Efrat, 2020. "Voice and power: Do institutional shareholders make use of their voting power?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto & Lekfuangfu, Warn N., 2023. "Critical Mass in Collective Action," MPRA Paper 117139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Janas, Moritz & Jordan, Michelle, 2024. "Cheap signaling of altruism," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    expressive voting; committees; pivotality; laboratory experiment; level-k; structural estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C57 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Econometrics of Games and Auctions
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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