American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Optimal Voting Mechanisms on Generalized Single-Peaked Domains
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 181–201)
Abstract
This paper studies the design of voting mechanisms. There are multiple alternatives, and the voters have generalized single-peaked preferences derived from median spaces as introduced in Nehring and Puppe (2007b). This class of preferences covers a wide range of economically relevant domains, and it is much larger than the well-known single-peaked preferences on a line. I characterize the welfare-maximizing voting rules among all social choice functions satisfying strategy-proofness, anonymity, and surjectivity. The optimal mechanisms are composed of binary votes on subsets of alternatives involving flexible majority requirements.Citation
Rachidi, Tobias. 2025. "Optimal Voting Mechanisms on Generalized Single-Peaked Domains." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 17 (4): 181–201. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20220133Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D71 Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design