Laurent Bouton

Boston University
Department of Economics
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: +1 (617) 353 4140
Cell phone: +1 (617) 350 5693
E-mail: lbouton@bu.edu
		Curriculum Vitae [pdf]

Academic Positions

Education

Research

My main fields of interest are political economics, microeconomics and public economics. My research focuses on the game theoretic analysis of political and market institutions.

Working Papers

1. One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation (with Micael Castanheira), CEPR Discussion Paper 6695, February 2008 [updated version December 2008]

Abstract: In elections, majority divisions pave the way to focal manipulations and coordination failures, which can lead to the victory of the wrong candidate. This paper shows how this flaw can be addressed if voter preferences over candidates are sensitive to information. We consider two potential sources of divisions: majority voters may have similar preferences but opposite information about the candidates, or opposite preferences. We show that when information is the source of majority divisions, Approval Voting features a unique equilibrium with full information and coordination equivalence. That is, it produces the same outcome as if both information and coordination problems could be resolved. Other electoral systems, such as Plurality and Two-Round elections, do not satisfy this equivalence. The second source of division is opposite preferences. Whenever the fraction of voters with such preferences is not too large, Approval Voting still satisfies full information and coordination equivalence.

2. Runoff Elections and the Condorcet Loser: The Ortega Effect, mimeo, ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles, October 2008 - [updated version August 2009]

Abstract: A crucial component of Runoff electoral systems is the threshold fraction of votes above which a candidate wins outright in the first round. I analyze the influence of this threshold on the voting equilibria in three-candidate Runoff elections. I demonstrate the existence of an Ortega Effect which may unduly favor dominated candidates and thus lead to the election of the Condorcet Loser in equilibrium. The reason is that, contrarily to commonly held beliefs, lowering the threshold for first-round victory may actually induce voters to express their preferences excessively. I also extend Duverger's Law to Runoff elections with any threshold below, equal or above 50%. Therefore, Runoff elections are plagued with inferior equilibria that induce either too high or too low expression of preferences.

Publications

1. Redistributing Income under Fiscal Vertical Imbalance (with Marjorie Gassner and Vincenzo Verardi), European Journal of Political Economy, 24(2), 2008, pp. 317-328

2. The Condorcet-Duverger Trade-Off: Swing Voters and Voting Equilibria (with Micael Castanheira), in Aragonés, E., Beviá, C., Llavador, H., Schofield, N., Eds., The Political Economy of Democracy, 2009, fundacion BBVA, Spain

3. Le fédéralisme budgétaire, in Valenduc, C., Ed., L’impôt et la politique fiscale en Belgique, forthcoming, Institut Belge des Finances Publiques, Belgium

Work in Progress

1. The Market for MBAs: Rankings and Coordination (with Georg Kirchsteiger)

2. Divided Majority and Information Aggregation: a Laboratory Experiment (with Micael Castanheira, Georg Kirchsteiger and Jean-Benoit Pilet)

3. Signaling and Political Decision-Making (with Monika Buetler and Patricia Funk)

Teaching