Table of Contents
Costs of Voting
Can you explain a bit more about the table for costs of voting?
This is the table I have in the recitation slides:
| Voted = Yes | Voted = No | |
|---|---|---|
| Election outcome = Preferred candidate won |
Benefits - Costs of Voting | Benefits |
| Election outcome = Preferred candidate lost |
- Costs of Voting | Zero |
First, we have a few assumptions when analyzing the decision to vote from a rational choice framework:
- Cost of voting is negative if we vote; and is zero if we do not voting
- Benefit is positive if our preferred candidate wins; and is zero if our preferred candidate loses
- Chance of any individual vote changing the outcome is very low (close to zero)
The intuition behind the table is that no matter what is the election outcome (preferred candidate win or lose), for us personally, the net benefit is always higher if we do not vote, than if we vote.
- If our preferred candidate wins (first row),
Benefits > Benefits - Costs of Voting. Net benefit is higher if we do not vote. - If our preferred candidate loses (second row),
Zero > - Costs of Voting. Net benefit is higher if we do not vote.
Game Theory and Government Shutdown
Trump was prolonging the shutdown in order to get funding for the wall, is that a game theory/strategic interaction scenario?
Yes! Threatening or prolonging government shutdown in order to leverage a “better deal”, when viewed from a strategic interaction lens, is quite similar to the game of chicken (a sort of brinksmanship).
This is a situation where both players will benefit if both sides yield (take a compromise budget deal), both players will lose if neither side yield (government shutdown), but if only one player yields and the other doesn’t (Trump gives up, Congressional Democrats do not), then the player that yields loses and the other player benefits (no funding for wall, government shutdown ends).
See this NPR article for more in depth discussion on the incentives both sides faced that shaped this negotiation into a political brinksmanship, and this FiveThirtyEight article on why we (the voters) are partly to blame for this.