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Counting on my vote not counting: Expressive voting in committees

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

Abstract

How do voting institutions affect incentives of committees to vote expressively? We model a committee that chooses whether to approve a proposal that some members may consider ethical. Members who vote for the proposal receive expressive utility, and all members pay a cost if the proposal is accepted. Committee members may have different depths of reasoning. Under certain sufficient conditions, the model predicts that features that reduce the probability of a member being pivotal – namely, larger committee size, or a more restrictive voting rule – raise the share of votes in favour of the proposal. A laboratory experiment with a charitable donation framing presents evidence in line with these results. Our structural estimation recovers the distributions of altruistic and expressive preferences, as well as of depth of reasoning, across individuals.

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  • Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto & Lekfuangfu, Warn N., 2022. "Counting on my vote not counting: Expressive voting in committees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:205:y:2022:i:c:s0047272721001912
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104555
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    Cited by:

    1. 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".
    2. Dressler, Efrat, 2020. "Voice and power: Do institutional shareholders make use of their voting power?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Yves Breitmoser & Justin Valasek & Justin Mattias Valasek, 2023. "Why Do Committees Work?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10800, CESifo.
    4. Breitmoser, Yves & Valasek, Justin, 2023. "Why do committees work?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 18/2023, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    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. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto & Lekfuangfu, Warn N., 2023. "Critical Mass in Collective Action," MPRA Paper 117139, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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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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