Legislative bargaining with teams

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the Baron-Ferejohn (1989)

Mitigating Public Concerns About Recycled Drinking Water: Leveraging the Power of Voting and Communication

“…But what exactly led participants in the communication treatment to accept prices that were lower than their private reservation prices? To find out, we analyzed the language used in the chat boxes, following the approach introduced by Bradfield and Kagel () and Baranski and Kagel (). For example, in Bradfield and Kagel () the authors first determined a number of relevant language categories (eight) to gain further insight into individuals' behaviors; they then had two undergraduate students code the entire chat by providing a count of the occurrences of each of these categories—probit models were used to identify potential effects.…”

“…To find out, we analyzed the language used in the chat boxes, following the approach introduced by Bradfield and Kagel () and Baranski and Kagel (). For example, in Bradfield and Kagel () the authors first determined a number of relevant language categories (eight) to gain further insight into individuals' behaviors; they then had two undergraduate students code the entire chat by providing a count of the occurrences of each of these categories—probit models were used to identify potential effects. (Note that in Bradfield and Kagel () the authors use the language categories to explain why team decisions, in a bargaining game, are closer to the subgame perfect equilibrium prediction compared to individual decisions—chat categories reveal that players recognize the subgame perfect equilibrium early in the game.…”

“…Public decision making, therefore, refers to the fact that an individual may impact the outcome and, consequently, the welfare of the group through their decision; it does not refer to the visibility of the decision—participants cannot observe each other's decisions. Additionally, in two between‐subjects treatments, we allow half of the participants to communicate in a 5‐min online chat box that records their communications before each vote (following an approach introduced by Bradfield & Kagel, ; Baranski & Kagel, ). Communication has previously been shown to be welfare enhancing by increasing cooperation in public goods experiments (e.g., Brosig et al, ).…”

An Analysis of the Use of Money to Divert the Exercise of Government Power for the Wealthiest

“…The trade of government actions desired by private agents in return for benefits to 13 Within governments, collusion also sometimes exists in the form of coalitions that are optimally formed among elected politicians through bargaining to maximize summed benefits across supporters for particular policies (Bradford and J. Kagel, 2015). This sort of collusion that may be more doable on broader economic policies within parliamentary systems with more than two political parties (Economist, 2018o) represents a further layer in the process involved in agent groups winning over government leaders to policies they support.…”

Greasing the wheels: Pork and public goods contributions in a legislative bargaining experiment

“…More generally, the design of the experiment also affects proposer power. Increased proposer power is seen in Agranov and Tergiman (2014) where players can communicate and in Bradfield and Kagel (2015) where subjects bargain in teams.…”