Minority Voting and Long-term Decisions

Arbeitspapier

In this paper we propose minority voting as a scheme that can partially protect individuals from the risk of repeated exploitation. We consider a committee that meets twice to decide about projects where the first-period project may have a long-lasting impact. In the first period a simple open majority voting scheme takes place. Voting splits the committee into three groups: voting winners, voting losers, and absentees. Under minority voting only voting losers keep the voting right in the second period. We show that as soon as absolute risk aversion exceeds a threshold value minority voting is superior to repeated application of the simple majority rule.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Economics Working Paper Series ; No. 07/70

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: voting ; minority ; durable decision ; risk aversion ; tyranny of majority rules ; Abstimmungsregel ; Minderheit ; Wahlsystem ; Zeitkonsistenz ; Risikoaversion ; Neue politische Ökonomie ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fahrenberger, Theresa ; Gersbach, Hans
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research
• (where): Zurich
• (when): 2007

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.3929/ethz-a-005425681
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/171513
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET