Voting is a lottery in which an individual who is uncertain about how the others vote wins if she belongs to the majority or loses if she falls into the minority. The risk of losing can be reduced by increasing the majority threshold. This however has the negative effect of also lowering the...

We present and experimentally test a theoretical model of majority threshold determination as a function of voters' risk preferences. The experimental results confirm the theoretical prediction of a positive correlation between a voter's risk aversion and the corresponding preferred majority...

We study, both theoretically and experimentally, the relation between preferred majority thresholds and behavioral traits such as the degree of risk aversion and the subjective confidence on others preferences over the alternative to vote. The main theoretical findings are supported by...

Models of political competition portray political candidates as seeking the support of the median voter to win elections by majority voting. In practice, political candidates seek supermajorities rather than majorities based on support of the median voter. We study the political benefits from...

We study communication in committees selecting one of two alternatives when consensus is required and agents have private information about their preferences. Delaying the decision is costly, so a form of multiplayer war of attrition emerges. Waiting allows voters to express the intensity of...

The author proposes a two-round process called minority voting to allocate public projects in a polity. In the first round, a society decides by a simple majority decision whether to provide the public project. If the proposal in the first round is rejected, the process ends. Otherwise the...

The author proposes a two-round process called minority voting to allocate public projects in a polity. In the first round, a society decides by a simple majority decision whether to provide the public project. If the proposal in the first round is rejected, the process ends. Otherwise the...