Costly Voting: Theoretical and Experimental Results on Commons Dilemmas in Spatial Committee Games

Abstract

"Our focus in this paper is with the transaction costs inherent in most decision making settings. We specifically investigate an "institution free" collective choice mechanism that includes costs to calling votes. A set of models show that under low costs (i.e., where no cost-induced equilibrium exists), actors have dominant strategies to continue to call votes. When those costs are collectively borne, a commons problem arises in which everyone is left worse off. A series of experimental manipulations are implemented to test various aspects of this model. These experiments use five-person committees with a forward moving agenda. Our results show that subject behavior is consistent with our theoretical predictions. We speculate about how differing institutional mechanism may be developed and retained precisely to offset these kinds of collective costs."