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Choosing choices: Agenda selection with uncertain issues

Author

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  • Raphaël Godefroy

    (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Eduardo Perez-Richet

    (X - École polytechnique)

Abstract

This paper studies selection rules i.e. the procedures committees use to choose whether to place an issue on their agenda. The main ingredient of the model is that committee members are uncertain about their final preferences at the selection stage: they only know the probability that they will eventually prefer the proposal to the status quo at the decision stage. This probability is private information. We find that a more stringent selection rule makes the voters more conservative. Hence individual behavior reinforces the effect of the rule instead of balancing it. For a voter, conditional on being pivotal, the probability that the proposal is adopted depends on which option she eventually favors. The probability that the proposal is adopted if she eventually prefers the proposal increases at a higher rate with the selection rule than if she eventually prefers the status quo. In order to compensate for that, the voters become more selective. The decision rule has the opposite effect. We describe optimal rules when there is a fixed cost of organizing the final election.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphaël Godefroy & Eduardo Perez-Richet, 2010. "Choosing choices: Agenda selection with uncertain issues," Working Papers halshs-00564976, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00564976
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00564976
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Emeric Henry & Charles Louis-Sidois, 2020. "Voting and Contributing When the Group Is Watching," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 246-276, August.
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    4. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto, 2019. "When collective ignorance is bliss: Theory and experiment on voting for learning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 52-64.
    5. Emeric Henry & Charles Louis-Sidois, 2018. "Voting and Contributing While the Group is Watching," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393121, HAL.
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    10. Andreas Kleiner & Benny Moldovanu, 2017. "Content-Based Agendas and Qualified Majorities in Sequential Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1477-1506, June.

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