American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Legislative Bargaining under Weighted Voting
American Economic Review
vol. 95,
no. 4, September 2005
(pp. 981–1004)
Abstract
Organizations often distribute resources through weighted voting. We analyze this setting using a noncooperative bargaining game based on the Baron-Ferejohn (1989) model. Unlike analyses derived from cooperative game theory, we find that each voter's expected payoff is proportional to her voting weight. An exception occurs when many high-weight voters exist, as low-weight voters may expect disproportionately high payoffs due to proposal power. The model also predicts that, ex post, the coalition formateur (the party chosen to form a coalition) will receive a disproportionately high payoff. Using data from coalition governments from 1946 to 2001, we find strong evidence of such formateur effects.Citation
Snyder, James, M. Jr., Michael M. Ting, and Stephen Ansolabehere. 2005. "Legislative Bargaining under Weighted Voting." American Economic Review, 95 (4): 981–1004. DOI: 10.1257/0002828054825538Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior