--- Eric Crampton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If expressive voting theory holds, and if expressive benefits > are increasing in the amount of money "voted" under the Tideman-Tullock > procedure, then the demand revelation process should induce worse outcomes > than the current system. Specifically, people who have the strongest > preferences are accorded only one vote each in the current system. Under > the demand revelation process, their influence will be magnified relative > to more instrumentally-oriented voters.
First of all, the demand-revealing method does not require that the identities of the persons stating a value be public. Each voter can be given a password, and he enters a stated value on a web site. The administrator of the system knows his identity, but this is not public knowledge. The voter can then express anything he likes, just as in a secret ballot. But even if his expression reflects his stated value, he is still deriving utility from the good. Why does it matter the reason for the utility? > In equilibrium, the people with the strongest expressive > preferences bid the most and none of them are likely to be decisive, and > outcomes are worse than under a one-man one-vote system, What matters is that the voter is willing to pay the average cost of the good plus the expected social cost of being pivotal. Suppose a community is voting for a public sculpture. One may not really want to have a sculpture, but one gets esteem from the approval one gets from expressing support for the arts. Suppose further that one gets disutility from not voting in accord with one's public expression. The statue is still providing utility, although in an indirect way, as those who get utility from approval of expression still obtained that utility from the sculpture. It is like admitting an Albanian into your club. The members don't really like Albanians, but they are proud of being regarded as appreciative of ethnic diversity, so they all vote to let in the Albanian. They all feel good about being diverse, so admitting the Albanian was rational after all. Fred Foldvary ===== [EMAIL PROTECTED]
