Minority Voting and Public Project Provision

36 Pages Posted: 29 Nov 2010

See all articles by Hans Gersbach

Hans Gersbach

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2007

Abstract

We propose a two-stage process called minority voting to allocate public projects in a polity. In the first period, a society decides by a simple majority decision whether to provide the public project. If the proposal in the first period is rejected, the process ends. Otherwise the process continues, but only the members of the minority keep agenda and voting rights for the second stage, in which the financing scheme is determined. In the second stage, the unanimity rule or the simple majority rule is applied. We provide a first round of relative welfare comparisons between minority voting and simple majority voting and outline our research program.

Keywords: democratic constitutions, minority voting, public projects

JEL Classification: D60, D72, H40

Suggested Citation

Gersbach, Hans, Minority Voting and Public Project Provision (2007). Economics Discussion Paper No. 2007-20, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1716360 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1716360

Hans Gersbach (Contact Author)

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