Abstract
A fully rational choice approach to politics does not closely resemble modern models of voting behavior that purport to be applications of the economists analysis of rationality to the political sector. For these models do not build voting choices on the fragility of preferences about how to vote, which we show to be a basic implication of the voters paradox. Building a simple model on the fragility of preferences about how to vote delivers an number of different and realistic implications for the demand for public policies and political candidates, the supply of public policies and political candidates, and, ultimately, the determinants of public policy. The model explains why so many studies have found voters not voting in their (narrowly defined) self-interest, why minorities are not exploited under majoritarian voting, why interest groups have an important influence on public policy, why public decisions are so weakly correlated with voting rules, and why conformity is more common in political than private life.
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Notes
- 1.
Those published during the years 1994–98, assigned Journal of Economic Literature classification “Economic Models of Political Processes,” and had a model of the political process.
- 2.
Public Choice had a similar distribution for the four years 1995–98; 77 \(\%\) individual voting in self-interest, 17 \(\%\) interest group models, and 6 \(\%\) social planner models.
- 3.
(Myerson 1995, p. 79ff) shows how political strategies are sensitive to the rules of the voting game in instrumental voting models. He also suggests on p. 77 that different political strategies would be associated with different policy outcomes, but he does not offer a declaration of this point.
- 4.
- 5.
The utility function (1.3) can easily include “random” components to reflect that advertising has an uncertain effect on a person’s preferences.
- 6.
Brennan and Lomasky (1983) also demonstrate the difference between the market buying process and the voting process with some simple numerical examples.
- 7.
See studies surveyed by Sears and Funk (1991, p. 34ff). Propositions 13 and 2 1/2 were proposals to cap or cut some important sources of state revenue.
- 8.
We discuss below the (unsurprising) prediction that political advertising will be more intense in a close election.
- 9.
A similar point is made by (Aldrich 1993, pp. 267–268), although he does not call it “advertising.”
- 10.
With two candidates and more than two advertisers, each advertiser much take into account not only the reaction of advertisers of the opposing candidate, but advertisers of the same persuasion who might free ride.
- 11.
Sometimes the “wasted vote” argument is explicitly used by advertisers to sway votes to induce individuals to deviate from the “preferred” vote. (Aldrich 1993, p. 270) cites an example from the 1980 Presidential election, “the two parties, their nominees, and interest groups, therefore, make the argument publicly that a vote for a third-party candidate will be wasted. Resources were systematically devoted to convincing people that ‘a vote for Anderson is a vote for Reagan,’ as Carter put it....”.
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Acknowledgements
We appreciate the comments of Morris Fiorina and Erzo Luttmer, the research assistance of Ran Tao and Shiqiang Zhan, University of Chicago seminar participants, and the financial support of the Smith Richardson Foundation. This is an unfinished note we wrote in 1999 and did not publish because we thought it needed, and we would eventually find, an additional breakthrough. Joshua Hall convinced us to include it in his book of unpublished papers. Gary had a few minor edits for Halls purpose, which were lost at the time Gary passed away. Throughout his life, Gary was eager to and capable of further integrating and advancing theories of economic and political behaviors.
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Becker, G.S., Mulligan, C.B. (2017). Is Voting Rational or Instrumental?. In: Hall, J. (eds) Explorations in Public Sector Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47828-9_1
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