{"title":"Semi-flexible majority rules for public good provision","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s00355-024-01508-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>We introduce semi-flexible majority rules for public good provision with private valuations. Such rules take the form of a two-stage, multiple-round voting mechanism where the output of the first stage is the default alternative for the second stage and the vote-share thresholds used in every round of binary voting <em>(a)</em> vary with the alternative on the table for a public-good level and <em>(b)</em> require a qualified majority for approving the alternative on the table by stopping the procedure. We show that these mechanisms implement the ex post utilitarian optimal public-good level, provided valuations can only be high or low. This public-good level is chosen after all potential socially optimal alternatives have been picked for a voting round. We explore ways to reduce the number of voting rounds and develop a compound mechanism when there are three or more valuation types.</p>","PeriodicalId":47663,"journal":{"name":"Social Choice and Welfare","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Choice and Welfare","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-024-01508-3","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We introduce semi-flexible majority rules for public good provision with private valuations. Such rules take the form of a two-stage, multiple-round voting mechanism where the output of the first stage is the default alternative for the second stage and the vote-share thresholds used in every round of binary voting (a) vary with the alternative on the table for a public-good level and (b) require a qualified majority for approving the alternative on the table by stopping the procedure. We show that these mechanisms implement the ex post utilitarian optimal public-good level, provided valuations can only be high or low. This public-good level is chosen after all potential socially optimal alternatives have been picked for a voting round. We explore ways to reduce the number of voting rounds and develop a compound mechanism when there are three or more valuation types.
期刊介绍:
Social Choice and Welfare explores all aspects, both normative and positive, of welfare economics, collective choice, and strategic interaction. Topics include but are not limited to: preference aggregation, welfare criteria, fairness, justice and equity, rights, inequality and poverty measurement, voting and elections, political games, coalition formation, public goods, mechanism design, networks, matching, optimal taxation, cost-benefit analysis, computational social choice, judgement aggregation, market design, behavioral welfare economics, subjective well-being studies and experimental investigations related to social choice and voting. As such, the journal is inter-disciplinary and cuts across the boundaries of economics, political science, philosophy, and mathematics. Articles on choice and order theory that include results that can be applied to the above topics are also included in the journal. While it emphasizes theory, the journal also publishes empirical work in the subject area reflecting cross-fertilizing between theoretical and empirical research. Readers will find original research articles, surveys, and book reviews.Officially cited as: Soc Choice Welf