Economists and sociologists disagree over markets' potential to assume functions typically performed by networks of personal connections, first among them the transmission of information. This paper begins from a model of labor markets where social ties are stronger between similar individuals...

We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium, and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibriumwe...