Endogenous agenda formation in three-person committees

Abstract

This paper analyzes a 3-person voting game in which two or three players have the ability to choose alternatives to be considered. Once the set of possible alternatives and the structure of the voting procedure are known, the players can solve for the outcome. Thus, the actual choice over outcomes takes place in the choice of alternatives to be voted on, i.e., the agenda. An equilibrium to this agenda-formation game in shown to exist under different assumptions about the information relative to the order of the players in the voting game. Further, this equilibrium is computed and found to possess certain features which are attractive from a normative point of view.