Laurent Bouton
Biographic Data
| ID | 1015505 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laurent Bouton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laurent |
| FAMILY NAME | Bouton |
| SIGNATURE | BOUTON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Centre for Economic Policy Research |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Public Information as a Source of Disagreement Among Shareholders
Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation
This paper examines the comparative properties of voting rules based on the richness of their ballot spaces, assuming a given distribution of voting rights. We focus on how well voting rules aggregate the information dispersed among voters. We consider how different voting rules affect both voters’ decisions at the voting stage and the incentives of the agenda-setter, who decides whether to put the proposal to a vote. Without agenda-setter, the v…
A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions
Popular and academic discussions have mostly concentrated on large donors, even though small donors are a major source of financing for political campaigns. We propose a theory of small donors with a key novelty: it centres on the interactions between small donors and the parties’ fundraising strategy. In equilibrium, parties micro-target donors with a higher contribution potential (that is, richer and with more intense preferences) and increase …
Small Campaign Donors
Public Information as a Source of Disagreement Among Shareholders
The Tyranny of the Single-Minded
We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy-motivated politicians vote in favor of or against regulations on these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the beginning of their terms but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities a…
Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation
This paper studies the informational efficiency of voting mechanisms in shareholder meetings. When the management does not affect the proposal being voted on, we show that voting mechanisms are more efficient when their ballot space is richer. Moreover, efficiency requires full divisibility of the votes. When the management has agenda power, we uncover a novel tradeoff: more efficient mechanisms provide worse incentives to select good proposals. …
Voting in Shareholders Meetings
Run-off Elections in the Laboratory
We study experimentally the properties of the majority run-off system and compare them to those of plurality rule. Our focus is on Duverger’s famous prediction that the plurality rule leads to higher co-ordination of votes on a limited number of candidates than the majority run-off rule. We find strong co-ordination forces under both systems. However, as predicted by the theory, in some cases these forces are stronger under plurality. Despite the…
Group-Based Voting in Multicandidate Elections
We study the properties of the group-based model of voting in elections with more than two candidates. We consider two of the most widely used electoral rules around the world: plurality and majority runoff. We fully characterize the set of equilibria under both rules and identify the features of an election that favor different types of voting behavior: either sincere voting or coordination behind a limited number of candidates. Comparing plural…
Get Rid of Unanimity Rule
We study unanimous decision making under incomplete information. We argue that unanimous decision rules are not all equivalent. We show that majority rules with veto power are (i) Pareto superior to commonly used unanimous rules and (ii) ex ante efficient in a broad class of situations
Unanimous Rules in the Laboratory
We study the information aggregation properties of unanimous voting rules in the laboratory. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that majority rule with veto power dominates unanimity rule. We also find that the strategic voting model is a fairly good predictor of observed subject behavior. There are, however, cases where organizing the data seems to require a mix of strategic and sincere voting. This pattern of behavior would imply tha…
Run-off Elections in the Laboratory
We study experimentally the properties of the majority run-off system and compare them to those of plurality rule. Our focus is on Duverger’s famous prediction that the plurality rule leads to higher co-ordination of votes on a limited number of candidates than the majority run-off rule. We find strong co-ordination forces under both systems. However, as predicted by the theory, in some cases these forces are stronger under plurality. Despite the…
Group-Based Voting in Multicandidate Elections
We study the properties of the group-based model of voting in elections with more than two candidates. We consider two of the most widely used electoral rules around the world: plurality and majority runoff. We fully characterize the set of equilibria under both rules and identify the features of an election that favor different types of voting behavior: either sincere voting or coordination behind a limited number of candidates. Comparing plural…
Get Rid of Unanimity Rule
We study unanimous decision making under incomplete information. We argue that unanimous decision rules are not all equivalent. We show that majority rules with veto power are (i) Pareto superior to commonly used unanimous rules and (ii) ex ante efficient in a broad class of situations
Unanimous Rules in the Laboratory
We study the information aggregation properties of unanimous voting rules in the laboratory. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that majority rule with veto power dominates unanimity rule. We also find that the strategic voting model is a fairly good predictor of observed subject behavior. There are, however, cases where organizing the data seems to require a mix of strategic and sincere voting. This pattern of behavior would imply tha…
Get Rid of Unanimity Rule
We study unanimous decision making under incomplete information. We argue that unanimous decision rules are not all equivalent. We show that majority rules with veto power are (i) Pareto superior to commonly used unanimous rules and (ii) ex ante efficient in a broad class of situations
The Tyranny of the Single-Minded
We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy-motivated politicians vote in favor of or against regulations on these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the beginning of their terms but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities a…
Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation
This paper studies the informational efficiency of voting mechanisms in shareholder meetings. When the management does not affect the proposal being voted on, we show that voting mechanisms are more efficient when their ballot space is richer. Moreover, efficiency requires full divisibility of the votes. When the management has agenda power, we uncover a novel tradeoff: more efficient mechanisms provide worse incentives to select good proposals. …
Voting in Shareholders Meetings
Run-off Elections in the Laboratory
We study experimentally the properties of the majority run-off system and compare them to those of plurality rule. Our focus is on Duverger’s famous prediction that the plurality rule leads to higher co-ordination of votes on a limited number of candidates than the majority run-off rule. We find strong co-ordination forces under both systems. However, as predicted by the theory, in some cases these forces are stronger under plurality. Despite the…
Group-Based Voting in Multicandidate Elections
We study the properties of the group-based model of voting in elections with more than two candidates. We consider two of the most widely used electoral rules around the world: plurality and majority runoff. We fully characterize the set of equilibria under both rules and identify the features of an election that favor different types of voting behavior: either sincere voting or coordination behind a limited number of candidates. Comparing plural…
Small Campaign Donors
Public Information as a Source of Disagreement Among Shareholders
Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation
This paper examines the comparative properties of voting rules based on the richness of their ballot spaces, assuming a given distribution of voting rights. We focus on how well voting rules aggregate the information dispersed among voters. We consider how different voting rules affect both voters’ decisions at the voting stage and the incentives of the agenda-setter, who decides whether to put the proposal to a vote. Without agenda-setter, the v…
A Theory of Small Campaign Contributions
Popular and academic discussions have mostly concentrated on large donors, even though small donors are a major source of financing for political campaigns. We propose a theory of small donors with a key novelty: it centres on the interactions between small donors and the parties’ fundraising strategy. In equilibrium, parties micro-target donors with a higher contribution potential (that is, richer and with more intense preferences) and increase …
Public Information as a Source of Disagreement Among Shareholders
Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Voting (6 works) · Game Theory and Voting Systems (5 works) · Microeconomics (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (4 works) · Law (4 works)