TY - JOUR
T1 - Choosing an electoral rule: Values and self-interest in the lab
AU - Bol, Damien
AU - Blais, André
AU - Coulombe, Maxime
AU - Laslier, Jean-François
AU - Pilet, Jean-Benoit
N1 - Funding Information:
We benefited from funds from a Small Grant of the British Academy (Damien Bol), a Major Collaborative Research Initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (André Blais), and a Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 772695 Jean-Benoit Pilet).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - We study the choice of multi-person bargaining protocols in the context of politics. In politics, citizens are increasingly involved in the design of democratic rules, for instance via referendums. If they support the rule that best serves their self-interest, the outcome inevitably advantages the largest group. In this paper, we challenge this pessimistic view with an original lab experiment, in which 252 subjects participated. In the first stage, these subjects experience elections under plurality and approval voting. In the second stage, they decide which rule they want to use for extra elections. We find that egalitarian values that subjects hold outside of the lab shape their choice of electoral rule in the second stage when a rule led to a fairer distribution of payoffs compared to the other one in the first stage. The implication is that people have consistent ‘value-driven preferences’ for decision rules.
AB - We study the choice of multi-person bargaining protocols in the context of politics. In politics, citizens are increasingly involved in the design of democratic rules, for instance via referendums. If they support the rule that best serves their self-interest, the outcome inevitably advantages the largest group. In this paper, we challenge this pessimistic view with an original lab experiment, in which 252 subjects participated. In the first stage, these subjects experience elections under plurality and approval voting. In the second stage, they decide which rule they want to use for extra elections. We find that egalitarian values that subjects hold outside of the lab shape their choice of electoral rule in the second stage when a rule led to a fairer distribution of payoffs compared to the other one in the first stage. The implication is that people have consistent ‘value-driven preferences’ for decision rules.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147121348&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - h10.1016/j.joep.2023.102602
DO - h10.1016/j.joep.2023.102602
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-4870
VL - 95
JO - JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY
JF - JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY
IS - 102602
M1 - 102602
ER -