The calculus of ethical voting
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The calculus of ethical voting
zbMATH Open document ID: 1109.91050
author: Timothy Feddersen
author: Alvaro Sandroni
published in: International Journal of Game Theory
publication date: 2007-01-26T00:00:00Z
review text: Behaviour in laboratory experiments and in the field does not always correspond to the predictions of decision and game theory. In particular a difficult problem for standard game-theoretic models is the observed large turnout in large elections. A solution for the problem of participation in large elections was proposed by \textit{Feddersen} and \textit{Sandorini} [Am. Econ. Rev. (in press)] who consider a model with ethical agents. This model predicts high turnout and comparative statics that are consistent with strategic behavior. In the reviewed article the conceptual and operational foundations for the ethical voter model are developed. In addition we show that ethical models share a common mathematical structure with elite driven turnout models. A two-candidate election is modeled in which a large population of agents may vote for candidate 1, vote for candidate 2 or abstain. Voting costs vary within the population and a single vote is never pivotal. Each agent is in some arbitrary group. Given the behavior of agents outside the group, a rule defines how each agent should behave in the group. It is shown that in order to produce consistent behavioral profiles, an agent must take as given the behavior of those who have different candidate preferences. An important feature of consistent ethical reasoning is that agents should properly anticipate the actual behavior that rules will produce if accepted by a group. It is shown that properly anticipating incentivities to follow rules ensures that the behavior upon which rules are evaluated are the same as the behavior that actually occurs. It is shown also that if the agents' behavior is consistent then there exists a cut-off point for each type such that the agents with voting costs below this threshold should vote for their favored candidate. These results provide a solid foundation for the theory of ethical voting. Anyway the existence and uniqueness of consistent profiles. A one-to-one correspondence between the…
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91B82
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A80
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91B12
zbMATH DE Number: 5118850
zbMATH Keywords: game theory
zbMATH Keywords: large election
zbMATH Keywords: ethical voting
zbMATH Keywords: ethical agent
zbMATH Keywords: mixed strategy
zbMATH Keywords: Nash equilibrium
reviewed by: Sergei V. Rogosin
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: s00182-006-0047-0
OpenAlex ID: W2092709098
cites work: Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections With Private Information
DOI: 10.1007/S00182-006-0047-0
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5118850