Alessandra Casella
Biographic Data
| ID | 5732295 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alessandra Casella |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alessandra |
| FAMILY NAME | Casella |
| SIGNATURE | CASELLA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
On the Fragility of Mediation
Mediation of disputes is increasingly common, often implemented by computer-run algorithms. We test the efficacy of a theoretically optimal mediation algorithm in an experiment where two subjects, uncertain about each other’s strength, negotiate how to share a resource. The subjects send cheap talk messages to one another (under direct communication) or to the computer mediator (under mediated communication) before expressing demands or receiving…
Liquid Democracy. Two Experiments on Delegation in Voting
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Voters have strong incentives to increase their influence by trading votes, acquiring others’ votes when preferences are strong in exchange for giving votes away when preferences are weak. But is vote trading welfare improving or welfare decreasing? For a practice long believed to be central to collective decisions, the lack of a clear answer is surprising. We review the theoretical literature and, when available, its related experimental tests. …
Democracy and Intensity of Preferences
Can direct democracy overcome the “problem of intensity,” treating everyone equally and yet allowing an intense minority to prevail if, but only if, the majority’s preferences are weak? Storable votes and quadratic voting propose possible solutions. We test their performance in two samples of California residents, using data on four initiatives prepared for the 2016 California ballot. To estimate the probable effects of the two systems, we bootst…
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Voters have strong incentives to increase their influence by trading votes, a practice indeed believed to be common.But is vote trading welfare-improving or welfare-decreasing?We review the theoretical literature and, when available, its related experimental tests.We begin with the analysis of logrolling -the exchange of votes for votes, considering both explicit vote exchanges and implicit vote trades engineered by bundling issues in a single bi…
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Democracy for Polarized Committees
Storable votes and judicial nominations in the US Senate
We model a procedural reform aimed at restoring a proper role for the minority in the confirmation process of judicial nominations in the US Senate. We propose that nominations to the same level court be collected in periodic lists and voted upon individually with storable votes, allowing each senator to allocate freely across the list a fixed number of total votes. Although each nomination is decided by simple majority, storable votes make it po…
Democracy for Polarized Committees
In polarized committees, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. Allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues restores some minority power. However, it also creates a complex strategic scenario: a hide-and-seek game between majority and minority voters that corresponds to a decentralized version of the Colonel Blotto game. We offer theoretical results and bring the game to the laboratory. The minority wins as…
Competitive Equilibrium in Markets for Votes
We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibrium we characterize always results in dictatorship if there is any trade, and the market for votes generates welfare losses, relative to simple majority voting, if the c…
Agenda control as a cheap talk game
Storable Votes and Agenda Order Control. Theory and Experiments
The paper studies a voting scheme where members of a committee voting sequentially on a known series of binary proposals are each granted a single extra bonus vote to cast as desired -a streamlined version of Storable Votes. When the order of the agenda is exogenous, a simple sufficient condition guarantees the existence of welfare gains, relative to simple majority voting. But if one of the voters controls the order of the agenda, does the schem…
Minorities and Storable Votes
The paper studies a simple voting system that can increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency or treating voters asymmetrically. Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desired over a series of binary decisions and thus elicit voters’ strength of preferences. The potential of the mechanism is particularly clear in the presence of systematic minorities: by accumulating votes on issues that it deem…
Alan Kirman
An experimental study of storable votes
A Simple Scheme to Improve the Efficiency of Referenda
Networks and Markets
Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation
Journal Article Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation: Prices and Ties Get access James E. Rauch, James E. Rauch University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Alessandra Casella Alessandra Casella University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other …
Can Foreign Aid Accelerate Stabilisation
This paper studies the effect of foreign aid on economic stabilisation. Following Alesina and Drazen (1991), we model the delay in stabilising as the result of a distributional struggle. Since the delay is used to signal each faction's strength, the effect of the transfer depends on the role it plays in the release of information. We show that this role depends on the timing of the transfer: foreign aid decided and transferred sufficiently early …
Trade as an Engine of Political Change
If efficient economic activity requires appropriate public goods, then changes in the volume and flow of trade will induce changes in the demand for these public goods. In general, if people disagree over their preferred levels of public goods, the expansion of trade may affect the structure of jurisdictions responsible for their provision. This paper presents a simple example meant to illustrate the general principle. It studies a general equili…
Economic Exchange During Hyperinflation
Historical evidence indicates that hyperinflations can disrupt individuals' normal trading patterns and impede the orderly functioning of markets. To explore these issues, we construct a theoretical model of hyperinflation that focuses on individuals and their process of economic exchange. In our model buyers must carry cash while shopping, and some transactions take place in a decentralized setting in which buyer and seller negotiate over the te…
Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation
Journal Article Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation: Prices and Ties Get access James E. Rauch, James E. Rauch University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Alessandra Casella Alessandra Casella University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other …
Can Foreign Aid Accelerate Stabilisation
This paper studies the effect of foreign aid on economic stabilisation. Following Alesina and Drazen (1991), we model the delay in stabilising as the result of a distributional struggle. Since the delay is used to signal each faction's strength, the effect of the transfer depends on the role it plays in the release of information. We show that this role depends on the timing of the transfer: foreign aid decided and transferred sufficiently early …
Economic Exchange During Hyperinflation
Historical evidence indicates that hyperinflations can disrupt individuals' normal trading patterns and impede the orderly functioning of markets. To explore these issues, we construct a theoretical model of hyperinflation that focuses on individuals and their process of economic exchange. In our model buyers must carry cash while shopping, and some transactions take place in a decentralized setting in which buyer and seller negotiate over the te…
Competitive Equilibrium in Markets for Votes
We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibrium we characterize always results in dictatorship if there is any trade, and the market for votes generates welfare losses, relative to simple majority voting, if the c…
Minorities and Storable Votes
The paper studies a simple voting system that can increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency or treating voters asymmetrically. Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desired over a series of binary decisions and thus elicit voters’ strength of preferences. The potential of the mechanism is particularly clear in the presence of systematic minorities: by accumulating votes on issues that it deem…
Democracy and Intensity of Preferences
Can direct democracy overcome the “problem of intensity,” treating everyone equally and yet allowing an intense minority to prevail if, but only if, the majority’s preferences are weak? Storable votes and quadratic voting propose possible solutions. We test their performance in two samples of California residents, using data on four initiatives prepared for the 2016 California ballot. To estimate the probable effects of the two systems, we bootst…
Economic Exchange During Hyperinflation
Historical evidence indicates that hyperinflations can disrupt individuals' normal trading patterns and impede the orderly functioning of markets. To explore these issues, we construct a theoretical model of hyperinflation that focuses on individuals and their process of economic exchange. In our model buyers must carry cash while shopping, and some transactions take place in a decentralized setting in which buyer and seller negotiate over the te…
Trade as an Engine of Political Change
If efficient economic activity requires appropriate public goods, then changes in the volume and flow of trade will induce changes in the demand for these public goods. In general, if people disagree over their preferred levels of public goods, the expansion of trade may affect the structure of jurisdictions responsible for their provision. This paper presents a simple example meant to illustrate the general principle. It studies a general equili…
Can Foreign Aid Accelerate Stabilisation
This paper studies the effect of foreign aid on economic stabilisation. Following Alesina and Drazen (1991), we model the delay in stabilising as the result of a distributional struggle. Since the delay is used to signal each faction's strength, the effect of the transfer depends on the role it plays in the release of information. We show that this role depends on the timing of the transfer: foreign aid decided and transferred sufficiently early …
Networks and Markets
Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation
Journal Article Overcoming Informational Barriers to International Resource Allocation: Prices and Ties Get access James E. Rauch, James E. Rauch University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Alessandra Casella Alessandra Casella University of California, San Diego and NBER Columbia University, CEPR, GREQAM and NBER Search for other …
A Simple Scheme to Improve the Efficiency of Referenda
An experimental study of storable votes
Alan Kirman
Storable Votes and Agenda Order Control. Theory and Experiments
The paper studies a voting scheme where members of a committee voting sequentially on a known series of binary proposals are each granted a single extra bonus vote to cast as desired -a streamlined version of Storable Votes. When the order of the agenda is exogenous, a simple sufficient condition guarantees the existence of welfare gains, relative to simple majority voting. But if one of the voters controls the order of the agenda, does the schem…
Minorities and Storable Votes
The paper studies a simple voting system that can increase the power of minorities without sacrificing aggregate efficiency or treating voters asymmetrically. Storable votes grant each voter a stock of votes to spend as desired over a series of binary decisions and thus elicit voters’ strength of preferences. The potential of the mechanism is particularly clear in the presence of systematic minorities: by accumulating votes on issues that it deem…
Agenda control as a cheap talk game
Competitive Equilibrium in Markets for Votes
We develop a competitive equilibrium theory of a market for votes. Before voting on a binary issue, individuals may buy and sell their votes with each other. We define the concept of ex ante vote-trading equilibrium and show by construction that an equilibrium exists. The equilibrium we characterize always results in dictatorship if there is any trade, and the market for votes generates welfare losses, relative to simple majority voting, if the c…
Democracy for Polarized Committees
In polarized committees, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. Allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues restores some minority power. However, it also creates a complex strategic scenario: a hide-and-seek game between majority and minority voters that corresponds to a decentralized version of the Colonel Blotto game. We offer theoretical results and bring the game to the laboratory. The minority wins as…
Democracy for Polarized Committees
Storable votes and judicial nominations in the US Senate
We model a procedural reform aimed at restoring a proper role for the minority in the confirmation process of judicial nominations in the US Senate. We propose that nominations to the same level court be collected in periodic lists and voted upon individually with storable votes, allowing each senator to allocate freely across the list a fixed number of total votes. Although each nomination is decided by simple majority, storable votes make it po…
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Voters have strong incentives to increase their influence by trading votes, a practice indeed believed to be common.But is vote trading welfare-improving or welfare-decreasing?We review the theoretical literature and, when available, its related experimental tests.We begin with the analysis of logrolling -the exchange of votes for votes, considering both explicit vote exchanges and implicit vote trades engineered by bundling issues in a single bi…
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare
Voters have strong incentives to increase their influence by trading votes, acquiring others’ votes when preferences are strong in exchange for giving votes away when preferences are weak. But is vote trading welfare improving or welfare decreasing? For a practice long believed to be central to collective decisions, the lack of a clear answer is surprising. We review the theoretical literature and, when available, its related experimental tests. …
Democracy and Intensity of Preferences
Can direct democracy overcome the “problem of intensity,” treating everyone equally and yet allowing an intense minority to prevail if, but only if, the majority’s preferences are weak? Storable votes and quadratic voting propose possible solutions. We test their performance in two samples of California residents, using data on four initiatives prepared for the 2016 California ballot. To estimate the probable effects of the two systems, we bootst…
Liquid Democracy. Two Experiments on Delegation in Voting
On the Fragility of Mediation
Mediation of disputes is increasingly common, often implemented by computer-run algorithms. We test the efficacy of a theoretically optimal mediation algorithm in an experiment where two subjects, uncertain about each other’s strength, negotiate how to share a resource. The subjects send cheap talk messages to one another (under direct communication) or to the computer mediator (under mediated communication) before expressing demands or receiving…
Economics (19 works) · Game Theory and Voting Systems (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Microeconomics (11 works) · Welfare (11 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (9 works) · Voting (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Mathematical economics (7 works)