Research
Coalition Formation in a Legislative Voting Game, with
John H. Kagel, and
Sotiris Georganas (August 2011)
We experimentally investigate the Jackson-Moselle (2002) model where legislators bargain over policy proposals and the allocation of private goods. Key comparative static predictions of the model hold as policy proposals shift in the predicted direction with private goods, with the variance in policy outcomes increasing as well. Private goods increase total welfare even after accounting for their cost and help secure legislative compromise. Coalition formations are better characterized by an efficient equal split between coalition partners than the stationary subgame perfect equilibrium prediction.
Appendix and
Instructions
Strategic Delegation in a Legislative Bargaining Model with Pork and Public Goods (August 2011)
This paper examines the incentives of voters to appoint legislators with different preferences from their own. The paper adopts an underlying legislative bargaining model proposed by Volden and Wiseman in which legislators with heterogeneous preferences divide a fixed budget between a public good and pork projects (local public goods). We show that voters have an incentive to strategically delegate to affect how the budget is divided at the legislative level. When voters' preferences for pork are not too strong, the incentives for strategic delegation exist to appoint representatives who will direct more money to the public good and not to pork projects. This results in at least as many representatives as districts that favor the public good. The comparative statics predict that when strategic delegation occurs, increasing the size of the legislature increases the fraction of the budget spent on the public good.
Greasing the Wheels: Pork and Public Goods Contributions in a Legislative Bargaining Experiment (July 2010)
This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment designed to investigate hypotheses about the way spending on pork facilitates public good provision in a legislative bargaining environment when preferences are heterogeneous (Volden & Wiseman, 2007). Contrary to the model's predictions, players favoring the public good often need no pork to pass heavily funded public goods proposals even when these players are in the minority. However, when they do include pork in a proposal, proposers use amounts that closely coincide with the theory. Proposers preferring pork deviate from the model when in the majority and offer predominantly minimum-winning coalitions that fund only pork when the theory calls for a positive amount to be given to the public good. In a separate treatment we also show support for the model's main comparative statics prediction that an increase in preference for pork can lead to an increase in funding for the public good when proposers attempt to secure votes using only public good allocations. The paper shows that fairness concerns, intentions-driven punishments, and emotion-based decision-making help explain these results.
Correction to ''Bargaining in Legislatures over Particularistic and Collective Goods''