Analyses of campaign contributions usually follow the Downsian model to suppose that candidates seek contributions to win elections. This paper takes the opposite approach, by assuming that each candidate aims to maximize the contributions he collects. A citizen contributes to a candidate with...

This essay provides a formal justification for qualified majority rules. Specifically, within an uncertain dichotomous choice framework, in which individual preferences are identical but actual judgments may differ, special majority rules emerge as decision rules that maximize the probability of...

This essay measures and analyzes for a special class of point-voting schemes (the Borda method, plurality rule and the unrestricted point-voting scheme) sensitivity to preference variation (a simple change in the socially winning alternative resulting from alteration of a single voter's...

This paper focuses on two properties of points voting schemes: their vulnerability to preference misrepresentation and their potential for preference expression. In the spirit of the seminal work of Buchanan and Tullock [2], this dual criterion might be used for the choice of an optimal points...