COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 445

"Logrolling and Budget Allocation Games"

Martin Shubik and Ludo Van der Heyden

1977

In this paper we approach the concept of logrolling by examining a voting system where choices are made among sets of competing projects as a game in characteristic function form. We translate the question: "Will there be prices for votes on different projects which clear the market?" into a different, but equivalent question: "Is the formal game we have described a market game?" We show that in general the answer is no, unless all voters have virtually the same preferences.

See CFP 482