“A Theory Waiting to Be Discovered and Used”: A Reanalysis of Canonical Experiments on Majority-Rule Decision Making

Bianco, William T.; Lynch, Michael J.; Miller, Gary J.; Sened, Itai

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00474.x

Cited by 53 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Since the Pareto set is typically located in the center of the space, the proposal outside the Pareto set is typically further away from a majority of voters than is the alternative within the Pareto set. As a result, majority rule leaves the Pareto set far less frequently than one might expect, consistent with the experimental results of Fiorina and Plott (1978), Bianco et al (2006Bianco et al ( , 2008, and others. Since proposals are random and voting is sincere, this result applies to cases with complete or incomplete information.…”

Section: Figure 2: Retention and Attractionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Even though majority rule is not in equilibrium in the Pareto set, subjects in our majority rule groups never left the set once they entered it. Although this result is surprising, it is somewhat consistent with experiments on the uncovered set (Bianco et al 2006(Bianco et al , 2008. Furthermore, even…”

Section: H3: Majority Rule Is At Least As Likely To Select Optimal Ousupporting

confidence: 86%

“…There has been a plethora of experimental research on group decision making using majority-rule (Fiorina and Plott 1978;McKelvey and Ordeshook 1981, 1984a, 1984bWilson 1986;Bianco et al 2006Bianco et al , 2008. Some of the earliest works find that groups voting under majority rule are much more predictable than McKelvey and Schofield's chaos theorem might imply.…”

Section: Experimental Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent work by Bianco et al (2006Bianco et al ( , 2008 suggests that the uncovered set 8 might explain the centralizing behavior of majority rule, particularly in multidimensional cases where no equilibrium exists. Bianco et al (2006) survey eight experiments on majority rule and find that roughly 94% of the experimental outcomes fall within the uncovered set.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bianco et al (2006) survey eight experiments on majority rule and find that roughly 94% of the experimental outcomes fall within the uncovered set. Conducting similar experiments of their own Bianco et al (2008), find that the percentage of outcomes in the uncovered set range between 59% and 100% --depending upon the configuration of ideal points.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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An experimental study of the efficiency of unanimity rule and majority rule

et al. 2014

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Abstract. We test several claims about the relationship between unanimity rule and Pareto optimality. Buchanan and Tullock (1962), Mueller (2003), and other scholars argue that unanimity rule is more capable of producing Pareto optimal outcomes than other voting rules, such as majority rule, because unanimity rule passes an alternative only if it makes everyone better off. Majority rule can pass alternatives that make some individuals worse off. Dougherty and Edward (2008), in contrast, claim that majority rule is at least as likely to select Pareto optimal outcomes as unanimity rule in finite games if proposals are random, sincere, or strategic. We test the two sets of conjectures in a two dimensional framework using laboratory experiments. Our results suggest: 1) majority rule enters the Pareto set more quickly than unanimity rule, 2) majority rule leaves the Pareto set at the same rate as unanimity rule, and 3) majority rule is more likely to select a Pareto optimal outcome than unanimity rule in the final round of play. Our results also suggest that proposers do not behave observationallyrational in the final round and complete information does not affect the primary result. * All authors: Department of Political Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Corresponding author: (706) 542-2989, .Throughout the paper, we use the term "majority rule" to refer to simple majority rule 1 (i.e. a proposal passes if and only if the yeas exceed the nays) and "unanimity rule" to refer to simple unanimity rule (i.e. a proposal passes if and only if the yeas > 0 and the nays = 0). See Dougherty and Edward (2004) and Riker (1982) for more details.Pareto optimality, also known as Pareto efficiency, is the most widely accepted criteria 2 for evaluating efficiency. An alternative is Pareto optimal if no alternative is Pareto preferred to it. That is, no other alternative can make at least one individual better off without making another individual worse off.A k-majority rule requires at least k individuals to vote in favor of a proposal in order for 3 the proposal to pass, where N/2 < k # N and N is the number of individuals; otherwise the status quo is chosen. Two special cases of k-majority rule are majority rule (k = N/2) and unanimity rule (k = N). See Dougherty and Edward (2004) for more precise definitions when non-voters and "votes to abstain" are permitted.

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Section: Figure 2: Retention and Attractionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: H3: Majority Rule Is At Least As Likely To Select Optimal Ousupporting

confidence: 86%