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Weingast, B. (1979), A Rational Choice Perspective on Congressional Norms (view source)
Revision as of 14:56, 6 September 2011
, 14:56, 6 September 2011→Model Setup
Modeled as an n-person cooperative game: A majority rule game with some special features. The authors call it the "Distributive Legislative Game." In the game, each representative <math>i</math> proposes a project or program with total benefits <math>b</math> and costs <math>c<b</math>. The benefits to the <math>i</math>th project accrue entirely to district <math>i</math>, but the costs are distributed equally to all districts. No side payments possible.
Given this setup: A legislator who proposes his project will be rejected by everyone else. Therefore some coalition building and logrolling is necessary: Rather than voting on single projects, legislators will vote on collections of them. If a legislator is part of the winning coalition, she gets the benefits of her own district's projects and pays an equally distributed slice of the costs. If a legislator is NOT part of the winning coalition, she still pays an equally distributed slice of the costs but gets no benefits.
