In this paper we examine the impact of reciprocal motives on decision-making in a committee. We show that each strategy profile that constitutes an equilibrium without reciprocity also represents an equilibrium under reciprocity. Under reciprocity, additional equilibria may exist. All of them...

We propose a model of sequential voting in committees, where members use their individual votes to signal high efficiency in their bid to become re-appointed. Transparency precludes efficient information aggregation, and thus decreases the utility of the principal in the first period; it may be...

We present a variant of a general equilibrium model with group formation to study how changes of non-consumptive benefits from group formation impact on the well-being of group members. We identify a human relations paradox: Positive externalities increase, but none of the group members gains in...

We examine repeated collective decisions in which people care about how others are treated. We formulate the notion of preferences for harmony as the desire of a person that others should not suffer repeatedly from the tyranny of majorities. We suggest that minority voting is a suitable scheme...

We explore how tax contracts affect government formation and welfare of voters in a democracy with proportional elections, four parties and sincere voting. A tax contract specifies a range of tax rates a party is committed to if in government. We develop a new model of party competition and...

Democratic processes may not take the welfare of future generations sufficiently into account and thus may not achieve sustainability. We introduce rejection/support rewards (RSRs) and show that a dual democratic mechanism-RSRs and elections-can achieve sustainability. RSRs stipulate that...