Minorities and storable votes
By: Alessandra Casella, Thomas Palfrey, Raymond Riezman.
Contributors: Palfrey, Thomas R., 1953-; Riezman, Raymond Glenn.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 11674; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11674.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Voting -- Mathematical models.; Elections -- Mathematical models.; Minorities.
Description: "The paper studies a simple voting system that has the potential to increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency.  Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desidered over a series of binary decisions.  By cumulating votes on issues that it deems most important, the minority can win occasionally.  But because the majority typically can outvote it, the minority wins only of its strength of preferences is high and the majority's strength of preferences is low.  The result is that aggregate efficiency either falls little or in fact rises.  The theoretical predictions are confirmed by a series of experiments: the frequency of minority victories, the relative payoff of the minority versus the majority, and the aggregate payoffs all match the theory"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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