IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/10908.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trading Votes for Votes. A Decentralized Matching Algorithm

Author

Listed:
  • Casella, Alessandra
  • Palfrey, Thomas R

Abstract

Vote-trading is common practice in committees and group decision-making. Yet we know very little about its properties. Inspired by the similarity between the logic of sequential rounds of pairwise vote-trading and matching algorithms, we explore three central questions that have parallels in the matching literature: (1) Does a stable allocation of votes always exists? (2) Is it reachable through a decentralized algorithm? (3) What welfare properties does it possess? We prove that a stable allocation exists and is always reached in a finite number of trades, for any number of voters and issues, for any separable preferences, and for any rule on how trades are prioritized. Its welfare properties however are guaranteed to be desirable only under specific conditions. A laboratory experiment confirms that stability has predictive power on the vote allocation achieved via sequential pairwise trades, but lends only weak support to the dynamic algorithm itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas R, 2015. "Trading Votes for Votes. A Decentralized Matching Algorithm," CEPR Discussion Papers 10908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10908
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP10908
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Riker, William H. & Brams, Steven J., 1973. "The Paradox of Vote Trading," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1235-1247, December.
    2. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Wolinsky, Asher, 1996. "A Strategic Model of Social and Economic Networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 44-74, October.
    4. Sasaki, Hiroo & Toda, Manabu, 1996. "Two-Sided Matching Problems with Externalities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 93-108, July.
    5. Joana Pais & Agnes Pinter & Robert F. Veszteg, 2012. "Decentralized Matching Markets: A Laboratory Experiment," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/08, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    6. Wilson, Robert, 1969. "An Axiomatic Model of Logrolling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 331-341, June.
    7. Koehler, David H., 1975. "Vote Trading and the Voting Paradox: A Proof of Logical Equivalence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 954-960, September.
    8. John H. Kagel & Alvin E. Roth, 2000. "The Dynamics of Reorganization in Matching Markets: A Laboratory Experiment Motivated by a Natural Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 201-235.
    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. Arthur Schram, 2016. "Gordon Tullock and experimental public choice," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 214-226, June.
    2. William Gehrlein & Michel Breton & Dominique Lepelley, 2017. "The likelihood of a Condorcet winner in the logrolling setting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(2), pages 315-327, August.

    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. Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2021. "Trading votes for votes: A laboratory study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 1-26.
    2. Casella, Alessandra & Turban, Sébastien, 2014. "Democracy undone. Systematic minority advantage in competitive vote markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 47-70.
    3. Comola, Margherita & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2018. "An experimental study on decentralized networked markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 567-591.
    4. Alessandra Casella & Antonin Macé, 2021. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 57-86, August.
    5. Casella, Alessandra & Macé, Antonin, 2020. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15201, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2020. "Matching with myopic and farsighted players," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    7. Thomas Gall & David Reinstein, 2020. "Losing face," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(1), pages 164-190.
    8. Omar A. Guerrero & Ulrich Matter, 2016. "Revealing the Anatomy of Vote Trading," Papers 1611.01381, arXiv.org.
    9. Casella, Alessandra & Palfrey, Thomas & Turban, Sébastien, 2014. "Vote trading with and without party leaders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 115-128.
    10. William Gehrlein & Michel Breton & Dominique Lepelley, 2017. "The likelihood of a Condorcet winner in the logrolling setting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(2), pages 315-327, August.
    11. Takács, Károly, 2010. "Hálózati kísérletek [Network experiments]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 958-979.
    12. Agranov, M. & Elliott, M., 2017. "Commitment and (In)Efficiency: A Bargaining Experiment," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1743, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. Otto Keck, 1987. "The Information Dilemma," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(1), pages 139-163, March.
    14. Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2019. "Experiments On Matching Markets: A Survey," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 153, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    15. Gian Caspari & Manshu Khanna, 2021. "Non-Standard Choice in Matching Markets," Papers 2111.06815, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    16. Guerrero, Omar & Matter, Ulrich, 2021. "Quantifying Vote Trading Through Network Reciprocity," Economics Working Paper Series 2106, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    17. László Á. Kóczy, 2018. "Partition Function Form Games," Theory and Decision Library C, Springer, number 978-3-319-69841-0, December.
    18. Dean Lacy & Emerson M.S. Niou, 2000. "A Problem with Referendums," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 5-31, January.
    19. repec:esx:essedp:769 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Paul J. Gertler & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Simeon Nichter, 2022. "Vulnerability and Clientelism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3627-3659, November.
    21. Jean-François Caulier & Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2015. "An allocation rule for dynamic random network formation processes," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(2), pages 283-313, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Algorithms; Matching; Vote trading; Voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:10908. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.