Description:

In a democracy, collective decisions are taken through political institutions which are, in principle, in charge of agregating the different opinions and the conflicting interests of the citizens.
Following this perspective, this course studies collective decision-making with the tools of modern economic analysis: formal theorizing and controlled experiments. We present both the prescriptive point view of Social Choice Theory and the descriptive models of political institutions and behavior.
The following themes wil be studied: The justification of majority rule and the Condorcet Jury theorem. The median voter theorem. The logical difficulties of collective decisionmaking. The classical Downsian electoral competition. The question of ideological positioning of the parties. The different voting rules and their consequences. Applications to fiscal decision, redistribution issues, and other socio-economic problems.
Required level : Elementary Microeconomics Evaluation : In class presentation of scientific papers. A list of possible topics with references will be provided .

0. Books

-Arrow, K. (1951) Social Choice and Individual Values.
-Downs, A. (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy.
-Green, D. P. and Shapiro, I. (1994) Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science, New Haven, Yale University Press.
-Persson, T. and G. Tabellini (2000) Political Economics MIT Press.
-Laslier, JF (2004) Le vote et la règle majoritaire. Paris: éditions du CNRS, collection Science Politique.
-Grossman, Helpman (2001) Special Interest Politics, MIT Press
-Persson, T. and G. Tabellini (2003) The Economic Effects of Constitutions MIT Press.

1. Strategic Aspects of Information in Deliberation and Voting

[Les votes en comité et les élections de masse donnent lieu à des cascades informationnelles redoutables, qu’on peut bien mettre en évidence en laboratoire.]
Information Cascades in the Laboratory: Anderson and Holt American Economic Review 87:847-862 (1997).
-Information Cascades: Replication… Hung and Plott American Economic Review 91:1508-1520 (2001)
-Austen-Smith, D. and T. Feddersen (2005) “Deliberation and voting rules”, pp. 269-316 in Social Choice and Strategic Decisions, edited by D. Austen-Smith and J. Duggan, Springer.
-Austen-Smith,D. and J.S.Banks (1996) Information Aggregation, Rationality and the Condorcet Jury ---Theorem” American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No.1, pp. 34-45.
-Austen-Smith, D. and T. Feddersen (2006) Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty and Voting Rules" American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, No. 2, 209-218.
-Jackson, M.O. (2008) “Disclosure, Deliberation, and Voting in Committees” mimeo.
-Young, H.P. and A. Levenglick (1978) A Consistent Extension of Condorcet’s Election Principle" SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, Part C, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 283-300.

2. Condorcet Jury Theorem and Committee design

-Austen-Smith, David and Jeffrey S. Banks (1996), “Information aggregation, rationality,
and the Condorcet jury theorem.” American Political Science Review, 90, 34–45.
-Feddersen, Timothy and Wolfgang Pesendorfer (1997), “Voting behavior and information aggregation in elections with private information.” Econometrica, 65, 1029–1058.
-Feddersen, Timothy and Wolfgang Pesendorfer (1998), “Convicting the innocent: The
inferiority of unanimous jury verdicts under strategic voting.” American Political Science
Review, 92, 23–35.
-Gerardi, Dino and Leeat Yariv (2008), “Information acquisition in committees.” Games
and Economic Behavior, 62, 436–459.
-Koriyama, Yukio and Balazs Szentes (2009), “A resurrection of the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” Theoretical Economics, 4, 227-252
-Laslier, Jean-François and Jorgen Weibull (2009), “The Concorcet jury theorem and preference heterogeneity.” working paper
-Li, Hao (2001), “A theory of conservatism.” Journal of Political Economy, 109, 617–636.
Martinelli, César (2006), “Would rational voters acquire costly information?” Journal of
Economic Theory, 129, 225–251.
-Martinelli, César (2007), “Rational ignorance and voting behavior.” International Journal
of Game Theory, 35, 315–335.
-Myerson, Roger B. (1998), “Extended Poisson games and the Condorcet jury theorem.”
Games and Economic Behavior, 25, 111–131.
-Persico, Nicola (2004), “Committee design with endogenous information.” Review of
Economic Studies, 71, 165–191.

3. Parliamentary Political Space: Descriptive applications of Theory of Spatial Voting

-La référence incontournable est le site de Keith Poole à l’U. C. San Diego :
polisci.ucsd.edu

De nombreux articles y sont disponibles, ainsi que des données sur longue période et des logiciels d’analyse, à propos de la question suivante : comment positionner les membres du congrès américain (et les partis) dans un « espace politique » à partir de l’observation de leurs votes et affiliations ?

4. Negociation and Haggling in Legislatures

-L’article célèbre: de D.Baron et J. Ferejohn, “Bargaining in Legislatures”, American Political Science Review 83 :1181-1206 (1989), a une nombreuse descendance théorique et le modèle a donné lieu à des expériences de laboratoire.
-Banks, J. and J. Duggan (2000) “A bargaining model of collective choice” American Political Science Review 94:73-88
-Diermeier, D. and R. Morton “Experiments in Majoritarian Bargaining” , pp. 201-226 in Social Choice and Strategic Decisions, edited by D. Austen-Smith and J. Duggan, Springer, 2005.

5. Vote Buying and Lobbying

-Groseclose, T. and J.M. Snyder, Jr. (1996) “Buying Supermajorities” American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 2, pp. 303-15.
-Dekel, E., M.O. Jackson, and A. Wolinsky (2008) “Vote Buying: General Elections," Journal of Political Economy
-Jackson, M.O. and H.F. Sonnenschein (2007) “Overcoming Incentive Constraints by Linking Decisions” Econometrica, Vol. 75, No. 1, pp. 241-257.
-Grossman, G. and E. Helpmann (1996) “Electoral Competition and special interest politics” Review of Economic Studies 63: 265-286.
-Persson, T. (1998) “Economic Policy and Special Interest Politics” Economic Journal 108: 310-327.

6. Participation

-André Blais, To Vote Or Not To Vote? The Merits and Limits of Rational Choice, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
-Palfrey, Thomas R. and Howard Rosenthal 1985. “Voter Participation and Strategic Uncertainty,” American Political Science Review, 79, 62–78.
-Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 1996. "Why people vote: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 417-442,
-Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 1996. "Voter Turnout as a Participation Game: An Experimental Investigation" International Journal of Game Theory, vol. 25(3), pages 385-406
-Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2007. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 014, University of Siena.
-Gerber, Alan S., and Donald P. Green, and Christopher W. Larimer. 2008. Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment. American Political Science Review 102(1): 33-48

7. Voting Rule: Classical Theory

-P. C. Fishburn (2002) Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare Chap 4.
-H. Moulin (1989) Axioms of Cooperative Decision Making. Cambridge UP

8. Voting Rule: Experiments

-Forsythe, R., T. A. Rietz, R. Myerson and R. J. Weber (1993) ''An Experiment on Coordination in Multicandidate Elections: the Importance of Polls and Election Histories,'' Social Choice and Welfare 10: 223-247
-Forsythe, R., T. A. Rietz, R. Myerson and R. J. Weber (1996) ``An Experimental Study of Voting Rules and Polls in Three-Way Elections'' International Journal of Game Theory, 25: 355-383.
A. Blais, JF. Laslier, N. Sauger and K. Van der Straeten (2008) “Sincere, strategic or heuristics” mimeo.

9. Strategic Candidacy

-Besley, T. and S. Coate (1997) An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 112, No.1, pp. 85-114.
-Dutta, B., M.O. Jackson and M. Le Breton (2001) “Strategic Candidacy and Voting Procedures” Econometrica, Vol. 69, No.4, pp. 1013-1037.
-Dutta, B., M.O. Jackson and M. Le Breton (2002) “Voting by Successive Elimination and Strategic Candidacy” Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 103, No. 1, pp.190-218.

10. Qualified Majority Voting Rules in European Union and Measurement of Power

-Quelles pondérations et quels seuils sont souhaitables pour l’Union Européenne ? Les systèmes proposés favorisent-t-ils les grands ou les petits pays ?
-D. Felsenthal et M. Machover (1998), The Measurement of Voting Power. Theory and practice, problems and paradoxes, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
-L.S. Penrose (1946) “The elementary statistics of majority voting” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 109(1), 53-57
-S. Barberà and M.O. Jackson (2006) “On the Weights of Nations: Assigning Voting Weights in a Heterogeneous Union” Journal of Political Economy 114(2), 317-339
-C. Beisbart and L Bovens (2007) “Welfarist evaluations of decision rules for boards of representatives” Social Choice and Welfare 29, 581-608
-C. Beisbart and S. Hartmann (2010) “Welfarist evaluations of decision rules under interstate utility dependencies” Social Choice and Welfare 34, 315-344
-D. Felsenthal and M. Machover (1999) “Minimizing the mean majority deficit: The second square-root rule” Mathematical Social Sciences 37, 25-37
-G. Owen (2007) Game Theory (3rd Edition) JAI Press, Chapter XII
M.A. Cichocki and K. Życzkowski ed. (2010) Institutional Design and Voting Power in the European Union, Ashgate
-A. Laruelle and F. Valenciano (2008) Voting and Collective Decision-Making. Cambridge Univ. Press
-N. Maaser and S. Napel (2007) “Equal representation in two-tier voting systems” Social Choice and Welfare 28, 401-420
-M. Le Breton, M. Montero and V. Zaporozhets (2011) “Voting Power in the EU Council of Ministers and Fair Decision Making in Distributive Politics” mimeo.
Voir le site du programme “Voting Power and Procedures” de la London School of Economics: www.lse.ac.uk

11. Political Economy and Redistribution

Un sujet classique pour l’économie publique. Peut-on, par exemple, expliquer la progressivité affichée des taux de taxe ou les programmes de soutien aux minorités défavorisées par la compétition électorale entre partis politiques ?
-Linbeck, A. and J. Weibull (1987) “Budget-balanced redistribution and the outcome of political competition” Public Choice 52:273-297.
-J.E. Roemer (1999) The democratic political economy of progressive income taxation, Econometrica 67 : 1–19.
-Lizzeri, A., and N. Persico (2001) The provision of public goods under alternative electoral systems, American Economic. Review 91 : 225–239.
-E.F. Klor (2003) “On the popular support for progressive taxation” Journal of Public Economic Theory 5 : 593–604.
-De Donder, Ph. et J. Hindrix (2004) “Progressive income taxation with corner preferences” Public Choice 118 :437-449.
-Carbonell-Nicolau, O. and E. Ok (2004) “Multidimensional income taxation and electoral competition : an equilibrium analysis” mimeo. Publié comme: “Voting over income taxation” Journal of Economic Theory, 134, 249-286, 2007

12. Political Economy of Environment

-Cremer, H., P. de Donder and F. Gahvari, «Political Sustainability and the Design of Environmental Taxes», International Tax and Public Finance, vol. 11, n. 6, novembre 2004, p. 703-719
-Cremer, DeDonder and F. Gahvari “Evironmental taxes and majority voting”
-Cremer, H., P. de Donder and F. Gahvari, «Taxes, Budgetary Rule and Majority Voting», Public Choice, vol. 119, n. 3-4, juin 2004, p. 335-358.

13. Political Economy of Immigration

-Ortega (2005) Immigration quotas and Skill upgrading, Journal of Public Economics.
-Benhabib (1996) “On the political Economy of Immigration” European Economic Review 40.
-Jehiel and Scotchmer (2001) Constitutional rules of exclusion in jurisdiction formation, Review of Economic Studies

14. Political Economy of Xenophobia

-J. Roemer (2001) Political Competition Harvard University Press
-J. Roemer et K. Van der Straeten (2004) « Xenophobia and distribution in France : A politico-economic analysis » document de travail du Laboratoire d’Econométrie de l’Ecole polytechnique n° 2004-22
-J. Roemer, W. Lee, and K. Van der Straeten (2007) Racism, Xenophobia and Distribution, Harvard University Press.

15. Experimental Economy of Trust and Segregation

-Fershtman and U. Gneezy (2001) “Discrimination in a segmented society: and experimental approach” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116: 351-377
-F. Bornhorst, A. Ichino, K. Schlag and E Winter (2004) “Trust and trustworthiness among Europeans: South-North comparison”, Department of Economics, European University Institute in Florence
-Weimann, J. (1994) Individual behaviour in free-riding experiments Journal Public Econ 54: 185-200.
-Burlando, R. and J. Hey (1997) Do Anglo-Saxons free-ride more ? Journal of Public Econ 64: 41-60.
-Justine Burns (2006) Racial stereotypes, stigma and trust in post-apartheid South-Africa, Economic Modelling, Volume 23, Issue 5, September 2006, Pages 805-821
-R. Boarini, JF Laslier and S Robin (2009) “Interpersonal comparison of utility in bargaining: Evidence from a Transcontinental Ultimatum Game” Theory and Decision, 67(4): 341-373.

16. Formal Collective Institutions and Cooperative Behavior

-Ch. Vanberg (2008) “Voting on a sharing norm in a dictator game” et voir les références dans ce papier expérimental récent.

17. Rational Behavior under Uncertainty and Utilitarianism

-Harsanyi (1955) “Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics, and interpersonal comparisons of utility” Journal of Political Economy 63: 309-321
-P. Diamond (1967) “Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics, and interpersonal comparisons of utility: Comment” Journal of Political Economy 75: 765-766
-J. Weymark (1991) “A reconsideration of the Harsanyi-Sen debate on utilitarianism” pp. 254-320 in Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being, edited by J. Elster and J. Roemer, Cambridge University Press
-J. Roemer (1996) Theories of Distributive Justice Harvard University Press, (en particulier le chapitre 4)

Dernière mise à jour : mercredi 7 mars 2012