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

Majority rule is known to be at odds with utilitarianism --- majority rule follows the preferences of the median voter whereas a utilitarian planner would follow the preferences of the mean voter. In this paper, we show that when voting is costly and voluntary, turnout endogenously adjusts so...

Increasing concern over corporate governance has led to calls for more shareholder in uence over corporate decisions, but allowing shareholders to vote on more issues, such as executive compensation, may not affect the quality of governance. We should expect instead that, under current rules,...

We present a model of two-stage elections in which candidates can choose different platforms in primaries and general elections. Voters do not directly observe the chosen platforms, but rather infer the candidates' ideologies from signals made during the campaign (debates, speeches), where a...

A fat and a healthy good provide immediate gratification, and cause health costs or benefits in the long run, which are misperceived. Additionally, the fat good (healthy good) increases (decreases) health care costs by increasing (decreasing) the probability of suffering from a chronic disease...

Democratic elections increasingly involve political intermediaries (e.g. grassroots organizations or political brokers). We develop a model of electoral competition in which candidates must decide between brokers (patronage) and grassroots organizations. Our model shows that patronage is more...

We introduce a framework to examine, both theoretically and empirically, electoral maldistricting. Maldistricting is defined as districting in pursuit of a policy at the expense of social welfare. Analysis is performed on the set of implementable (via some district map) legislatures, which are...

Ideally, a representative democracy awards a genuine vote to each adult. We study whether this applies in competitive democracies with an election model combining district appor- tionment and proportional representation (PR). Four classic seat allocation rules, including d'Hondt (1882), are...

There are many situations in which different groups make collective decisions by committee voting, with each group represented by a single person. A natural question is what voting system such a committee should use. Concepts based on voting power provide guidelines for this choice. The two most...

We extend approval voting so as to elect multiple candidates, who may be either individuals or members of a political party, in rough proportion to their approval in the electorate. We analyze two divisor methods of apportionment, first proposed by Jefferson and Webster, that iteratively...