Storable Votes - Part II

可存储投票是一种简单的投票机制，它赋予投票者一批额外的投票，并允许他们选择对一系列随时间推移提出的二元决策投多少票。每项决定都是根据投票的多数作出的。该机制诱导选民表达他们的偏好强度，虽然通常不是最优的，但有三个主要优点。首先，可存储的投票通常会增加相对于简单多数表决的预期福利。第二，可储存的选票使系统性的少数人偶尔获胜成为可能，总体效率损失很小或没有损失。 最后，该机制已被发现在实验室实验中表现良好。 该提案讨论了三个关于可存储选票的新研究项目。首先，可储存的选票对议程可能被操纵的敏感性尚不清楚。一个选民能在委员会其他成员的额外选票用完后，通过提出一个削减福利的决定来“迫使”委员会其他成员做出这个决定吗？答案并不明确，因为议程形成程序成为游戏的一部分，改变了所有的策略。第二，可存储的投票与其他旨在引发偏好强度的投票机制相比如何？这些机制包括交替独裁、购买投票或渐近有效的杰克逊和索南沙因机制。对这些问题进行了理论和实验研究。（建议的这些部分与托马斯帕尔弗里联合）。第三，在大量人口中，一个特别简单的静态实现可存储选票的方法是，在对一组同时进行的全民公决进行投票时，给予选民一张额外的选票。在过去已经得到了理论结果。在这里，我们建议通过基于互联网的实验来评估它们。(This部分与安德鲁·格尔曼和邓肯·瓦茨联合）。 最后，该提案讨论了一个与选举无关但却引人入胜的历史案例：1519年查理五世当选神圣罗马帝国皇帝。除了关于查理一世和他的对手、法国国王弗朗索瓦一世向七位选举人提出的确切契约的非凡可用性的数据之外，这一事件还因为协议的复杂性而引人注目：选举人根据编纂的顺序依次投票，有条件的契约是书面的，其中义务取决于其他选举人的行为。这一集分享了可存储投票模型的一些特征，特别是顺序拍卖结构。(This部分建议是与弗朗索瓦·韦尔德联合提出的）。 更广泛的影响。目前，政策界对投票规则的兴趣非常浓厚，实际上比学术界更浓厚。它是由一些非常明显的事件点燃的：2000年美国总统大选，2005年春天欧盟对宪法的否定性全民公决，联合国安理会理事会改革的讨论停滞不前。一本关于可存储选票的书正在与牛津大学出版社签约，其中大部分内容应该是普遍感兴趣的，但更公开的讨论需要对这一提议中提出的问题做出一些回答。由于项目结合了联合收割机非常不同的方法（经济理论，实验工作，数值练习，在线实验和历史研究），它们也是理想的教学工具，能够雇用具有不同才能的学生，并在他们的职业生涯的不同阶段。

Storable votes is a simple voting mechanism that endows voters with a stock of bonus votes and allows them to choose how many votes to cast over a series of binary decisions proposed over time. Each decision is taken according to the majority of votes cast. The mechanism induces voters to express the intensity of their preferences, and although not generally optimal has three main virtues. First, storable votes typically increase expected welfare relative to simple majority voting. Second, storable votes make it possible for a systematic minority to win occasionally, at small or no loss in aggregate efficiency. Finally, the mechanism has been found to perform well in laboratory experiments. This proposal discusses three new research projects on storable votes. First, the sensitivity of storable votes to possible manipulation of the agenda is not known. Could a voter "force" a welfare-reducing decision on the rest of the committee by proposing it when the others have exhausted their bonus votes? The answer is not clear because the agenda formation procedure becomes part of the game, altering all strategies. Second, how do storable votes compare to other voting mechanisms designed to elicit intensity of preferences - mechanisms like alternating dictatorship, or vote-buying, or the asymptotically efficient Jackson and Sonnenschein mechanism? Both theoretical and experimental research on these questions is proposed. (These parts of the proposal are joint with Thomas Palfrey). Third, a particularly simple, static, implementation of storable votes in large populations is to grant voters one extra, vote when voting over a bundle of simultaneous referenda. Theoretical results have been derived in the past. Here we propose to evaluate them through an internet-based experiment. (This part is joint with Andrew Gelman and Duncan Watts). Finally, the proposal discusses an unrelated but fascinating historical example of votebuying: the 1519 election of Charles V to emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In addition to the extraordinary availability of data on the exact contracts that Charles and its opponent, Francois I, the king of France, proposed to the seven electors, the episode is remarkable for the sophistication of the agreements: the electors voted sequentially according to a codified order and conditional contracts were written where obligations depended on the behavior of the other electors. The episode shares some features of the storable votes model, in particular the sequential auction structure. (This part of the proposal is joint with Francois Velde). Broader Impact. The interest in voting rules is at the moment very strong in policy circles, in fact stronger than in academia. It has been kindled by a number of very visible events: the 2000 US presidential election, the negative referenda on the Constitution in the European Union in the Spring of 2005, the halting discussion of reform of the Security Council of the United Nations. A book on storable votes is under contract with Oxford University Press, and large parts of it should be of general interest, but a more public discussion requires some answers to the issues raised in this proposal. Because the projects combine very different methodologies (economic theory, experimental work, numerical exercises, online experiments, and historical research) they are also ideal teaching tools, able to employ students with different talents and at different stages of the their career.