Storable Votes
Protecting the Minority Voice
Published on 12. January 2012
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-19-530909-6 (ISBN)
Description
Storable votes are a simple voting scheme that allows the minority to win occasionally, while treating every voter equally. Because the minority wins only when it cares strongly about a decision while the majority does not, minority victories occur without large costs and indeed typically with gains for the community as a whole.
The idea is simple: consider a group of voters faced with a series of proposals, each of which can either pass or fail. Decisions are taken according to the majority of votes cast, but each voter is endowed with a total budget of votes to spend freely over the multiple decisions. Because voters will choose to cast more votes on decisions that matter to them most, they reveal the intensity of their preferences, and increase their probability of winning exactly when it matters to them most. Thus storable votes elicit and reward voters' intensity of preferences without the need for any external knowledge of voters' preferences. By treating everyone equally and ruling out interpersonal vote trades, they are in line with common ethical priors and are robust to criticisms, both normative and positive, that affect vote markets. The book complements the theoretical discussion with several experiments, showing that the promise of the idea is borne out by the data: the outcomes of the experiments and the payoffs realized match very closely the predictions of the theory. Because the intuition behind the voting scheme is so simple: "vote more when you care more," the results are robust across different scenarios, even when more subtle strategic effects are not identified by the subjects, suggesting that the voting scheme may have real potential for practical applications.
Alessandra Casella has used the tools of economics to develop this idea both theoretically and experimentally in major economics journals, but this is the first book-length treatment of the subject.
The idea is simple: consider a group of voters faced with a series of proposals, each of which can either pass or fail. Decisions are taken according to the majority of votes cast, but each voter is endowed with a total budget of votes to spend freely over the multiple decisions. Because voters will choose to cast more votes on decisions that matter to them most, they reveal the intensity of their preferences, and increase their probability of winning exactly when it matters to them most. Thus storable votes elicit and reward voters' intensity of preferences without the need for any external knowledge of voters' preferences. By treating everyone equally and ruling out interpersonal vote trades, they are in line with common ethical priors and are robust to criticisms, both normative and positive, that affect vote markets. The book complements the theoretical discussion with several experiments, showing that the promise of the idea is borne out by the data: the outcomes of the experiments and the payoffs realized match very closely the predictions of the theory. Because the intuition behind the voting scheme is so simple: "vote more when you care more," the results are robust across different scenarios, even when more subtle strategic effects are not identified by the subjects, suggesting that the voting scheme may have real potential for practical applications.
Alessandra Casella has used the tools of economics to develop this idea both theoretically and experimentally in major economics journals, but this is the first book-length treatment of the subject.
Reviews / Votes
Under most voting systems, voters have no opportunity to express the intensities of their preferences over candidates. And even when they do, they usually have the incentive to exaggerate the intensities. In this important book, Alessandra Casella develops an ingenious and practicable way to elicit intensities accurately: a voter can save up her votes from elections she doesn't much care about for use later in a contest that really matters to her. * Eric S. Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Institute for Advanced Study * Storable Votes is a must-read for economists, political scientists and all those interested in the workings of alternative democratic institutions. * Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics * Casella has provided a persuasive case for a new method of voting that could be useful in both committees and elections. She makes use of powerful theoretical tools drawn from game theory and creative experimental methods of the kind that economists have found useful. The result is one of the most compelling recommendations for deep reform of age old voting institutions but one which preserves the attractive features of majority rule such as equal treatment of people and proposals. Anyone interested in the theory or application of voting needs to read and study this book. * John Ferejohn, New York University School of Law * This impressive book combines thorough theoretical analysis with evidence from laboratory and field experiments, and does all this in wonderfully clear writing. It should be required reading for students and researchers in political science and economics, and more importantly, for all designers and reformers of constitutions and committee procedures. * Avinash Dixit, Princeton University * By now it is rare to find completely new voting systems, much less one as innovative as Alessandra Casella's storable votes. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of storable vote systems, including theoretical background, laboratory and field tests, and useful variations for practical application. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the design of voting systems. * Matthew O. Jackson, Stanford University *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
39 line illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
737 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-530909-6 (9780195309096)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2012
Oxford University Press Inc
€45.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Alessandra Casella is Professor of Economics at Columbia University and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA) and the Center for Economic Policy Research (London). After studying at Universita' Bocconi in Italy, she received her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and taught at UC Berkeley before moving to Columbia. From 1996 to 2010, she was also Directeur d' Etudes at the Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris).
Casella's proposal for a system of Tradable Deficit Permits in the European Union has been widely studied and was briefly implemented in Austria to discipline the creation of domestic debt.
Casella's proposal for a system of Tradable Deficit Permits in the European Union has been widely studied and was briefly implemented in Austria to discipline the creation of domestic debt.
Content
Preface ; Introduction ; I The Idea ; 1 The Simple Logic of Storable Votes ; 2 Storing Votes over Time ; 3 Protecting Minorities without Sacrificing Efficiency ; 4 Agenda Control ; 5 Storable Votes in Large Elections: Referenda ; 6 A Field Test of Storable Votes in Large Elections ; 7 Conclusions ; II The Proofs ; The Simple Logic of Storable Votes ; 2 Storing Votes over Time ; 3 Protecting Minorities without Sacrificing Efficiency ; 4 Agenda Control ; 5 Storable Votes in Large Elections: Referenda ; 6 A Field Test of Storable Votes in Large Elections ; A Experimental Instructions ; Notes ; Bibliography