Working papers:
Democracy Undone: Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote Markets
Alessandra Casella; Sebastien Turban
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- Title:
- Democracy Undone: Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote Markets
- Author(s):
-
Casella, Alessandra
Turban, Sebastien - Date:
- 2012
- Type:
- Working papers
- Department:
- Economics
- Permanent URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:15388
- Series:
- Department of Economics Discussion Papers
- Part Number:
- 1213-10
- Publisher:
- Department of Economics, Columbia University
- Publisher Location:
- New York
- Abstract:
- We study the competitive equilibrium of a market for votes where voters can trade votes for a numeraire before making a decision via majority rule. The choice is binary and the number of supporters of either alternative is known. We identify a sufficient condition guaranteeing the existence of an ex ante equilibrium. In equilibrium, only the most intense voter on each side demands votes and each demand enough votes to alone control a majority. The probability of a minority victory is independent of the size of the minority and converges to one half, for any minority size, when the electorate is arbitrarily large. In a large electorate, the numerical advantage of the majority becomes irrelevant: democracy is undone by the market.
- Subject(s):
- Economics
- Item views:
- 93