Messner, M. and M. Polborn (2004), Voting on Majority Rules

Return to BPP Field Exam Papers 2012

Intergenerational Conflict

• Voters born in continuous time and live for length 1
• Deaths equal birth, so continuous mass
• Some chance of reform opportunity
• Reforms cost, c, yeild value v element of [0, [math]\infty[/math]]

Results

• At any given time, median voter will be happy with simply majority
• However, median voter is only median for a split second, so if constitutional moment arises, he will choose super-majority
• While median voter prefer voting rule of [math]r(t_{m})=2c[/math] for a current project, he prefers [math]r(t_{m})=4c[/math] to decide on all future projects.
• rule of [math]r(t_{m})=4c[/math] corresponds to [math]t_{s}=frac{3}{4}\gt frac{1}{2}[/math]