Prof.
Bryan Caplan
bcaplan@gmu.edu
http://www.bcaplan.com
Advanced
Public Choice
Lecture 4:
Expressive Voting
I.
The Instrumental Voting Assumption
A.
One key assumption we made before the midterm is that voters vote instrumentally.
B.
In other words, votes care about nothing except the policies they
get. They aren't interested in
personalities, entertainment, impressing their friends with their social
conscience, etc.
1.
Slightly different perspective: Is voting investment or consumption? Do people vote in order to get a later
pay-off, or is voting "its own reward"?
C.
Purely instrumental voting seems unrealistic. Image, symbols, faces, and so on matter
at least as much to voters as policy.
D.
There are many "Mom and apple pie" issues where all
candidates agree; they just try to wax more poetic than their competitors.
II.
Instrumental Versus Expressive Value
A.
Economists usually focus on the instrumental value of products -
what the products do.
B.
But empirically, it is hard to ignore the fact that consumers also care
about the expressive value of products - what they "say about a
person," the product's "image," etc.
1.
Is expressive value a means to the end of signaling desirable
characteristics to other people? Or
is expression an end in itself? For
purposes of this week's analysis, it makes little difference, but it is an
interesting question.
C.
Examples to make the difference clear:
1.
Cheering at a football game.
Are fans cheering in order to help their team win? Or are they primarily expressing
their "team spirit"?
2.
Getting a get-well card for a sick friend. Are you trying to cure them, or simply express
sympathy?
3.
Buying perfume. Do you buy
it just for the smell? Or are you
also buying an "image" created by Calvin Klein's ads?
4.
Joining the Million Mom March.
Are you going solely to change gun policy? Or are you also "showing that you
care," to express your concern for the nation's children?
D.
Most products provide a mix of both instrumental and expressive
value.
E.
But the mix varies. When I
buy a pick ax, I'm not doing it to "partake in the legend of Paul
Bunyan." But most people think
about "image" when they buy a car, or pick their clothes, or make
many other kinds of purchases.
F.
What can we learn if we extend this insight - that products provide a mix of
instrumental and expressive value - to voting?
G.
Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky address this question in Democracy
and Decision - in my judgment, one of the five best books in public choice
ever written. The following
discussion relies heavily on their work.
III.
Decisiveness Revisited
A.
If part of the motive for voting is expressive, there is a shocking
implication: People do NOT necessarily vote for the policies that they
most prefer.
B.
Why? Because expressive and
instrumental motives could work in different directions. A person might, on instrumental grounds,
prefer peace to war; but the expressive value of patriotism might outweigh
this.
1.
Similarly, if part of the motive for buying a car is expressive, people
will not necessarily buy the car with the mechanical properties they most
prefer.
C.
How exactly can one weigh instrumental and expressive values against
each other in an election? The
critical variable to remember: the probability of decisiveness.
D.
Crucial insight: your vote may not (indeed, almost certainly will not)
change the electoral outcome. But
you get the expressive value either way!
1.
Ex: Even if your candidate loses, you can still feel smugly superior in
your devotion to the homeless.
E.
What then is the total value of a policy to a voter? It is the probability of decisiveness times
the instrumental value, plus the expressive value.
F.
Let us define one voter's 
as the
instrumental value of policy A, 
as the expressive
value of policy A, and 
as the
probability of decisiveness.
G.
Then when the voter chooses between policy A and policy B, he strictly
prefers A to B if: 
.
H.
Now recall that for most realistic elections, 
. Then the voter
will choose policy A over policy B so long as: 
. In other words,
in a typical election, expressive value is ALL that matters!
IV.
Decisiveness and the Relative Prices of Instrumental and Expressive
Voting
A.
In markets, the logic of decisiveness reverses. The typical consumer choice in markets
is almost completely decisive.
When you order chicken at a restaurant, you are virtually sure to get
chicken:
.
B.
Thus, when a diner chooses between meal A and meal B, he strictly
prefers A to B if: 
. In others
words, in a typical market transaction, instrumental and expressive value
count EQUALLY.
C.
Slightly different perspective: In markets, participants will be
willing to give up $1 of expressive value in order to get $1 in instrumental
value.
D.
In politics, however, participants will be willing to give up $1 of
expressive value only if they receive $1/p in instrumental value in
return.
1.
Ex: If p were 1-in-a-million, they would only give up $1 in expressive
value for $1,000,000 in instrumental value!
E.
Thus, the relative prices of instrumental and expressive value differ systematically
between markets and politics. Expressive
value is dramatically cheaper in politics than in markets.
F.
This does not mean that we should expect no role for expressive value
in markets. But it does mean that
we should expect vastly more in politics.
G.
Ex: When you buy a car, you might consider the personality of
salesman. But are you willing to
pay $1000 extra to buy your car from the "nice guy"? In contrast, suppose that one
politician's policies are $1000 better for you than his rival's, but the rival
has a great smile. If
p=1-in-a-100,000, you will vote for the rival so long as that great smile is
worth a penny to you.
V.
The Hanson/Cowen Critique
A.
My colleagues Robin Hanson and Tyler Cowen do not buy the preceding
argument.
B.
Basic objection: Why isn't expressive value adjusted for probabilities,
too?
1.
Ex: You do not feel like a great person when you donate a penny to
charity. Why would you feel like a
great person when you vote against your financial interests? The former is probably a bigger
sacrifice than the latter.
C.
Variant: Perhaps expressive value depends on decisiveness. You feel better when you personally
"made a difference."
D.
My reply: Appeal to introspection.
B&L's is a more plausible description of how people really
think.
1.
Query: What does your introspection say?
VI.
Expressive Voting as Political Pollution
A.
At this point, one might say "So what if democracy counts
expressive value more?" Human
welfare (and efficiency) encompasses BOTH expressive and instrumental values.
B.
This is a good question, but it has a good answer: In democracy,
instrumental values are a public good!
C.
Individual voters personally enjoy all of the expressive value of their
vote, but get no personal benefit from voting for policies with high
instrumental value.
D.
Thus, there is a voter-on-voter externality of expressive
voting.
E.
Similarly, individual polluters personally enjoy all of the benefits of
polluting (driving a cheap gas-guzzling car), but get no personal benefit from
cutting back their emissions.
F.
In both cases, there is an inefficient outcome! Polluters ignore the social benefits of
clean air; voters ignore the social benefits of instrumentally valuable
policies.
G.
In both cases, "preaching" is unlikely to change
behavior. People are optimally
responding to the incentives they face.
H.
At first, the idea that the instrumental and expressive value of
policies can diverge is puzzling.
But it is quite intuitive.
1.
Is the "most likeable" politician always the one who favors
the most sensible policies?
2.
Is the "morally required" policy always the most
effective? Ex: The minimum wage is
very popular, even though it is at best a dubious way to help the poor.
I.
Question: How do politicians respond to expressive voting?
J.
Answer: Due to electoral competition, they have to give voters what
they want. So instead of focusing
on "boring" substantive issues, they emphasize personality, catchy
slogans, poetic language, flag-burning, gay marriage, etc.
VII.
Inefficient Unanimity
A.
Surely any policy that EVERYONE votes in favor of must be
efficient? Brennan and Lomasky
prove, surprisingly, that the answer is NO.
B.
Suppose voters get to decide whether to declare war on a hated national
enemy.
C.
Each voter who votes Yes feels like a brave patriot, getting $100 in
expressive value.
D.
But if war is actually declared, the country will be thrown into a
bloody conflict that costs each voter an average of $100,000.
E.
So what does each voter decide?
Each person votes Yes so long as 
.
F.
As long as 
, then, they vote Yes.
G.
Since everyone is identical by assumption, it follows that as long as , 100% of all voters vote for war.
H.
But what is the net per-capita social benefit of war? -$99,900!
I.
How is this possible? There
are massive externalities of expressive voting.
J.
Just as all polluters can be better off if everyone polluted less, all
voters can be better off if everyone voted differently – or if someone
overturns the electoral result.
VIII.
Application: Environmentalism
A.
"Caring about the environment" is probably one of the biggest
expressive issues of our time.
B.
There are of course some instrumental values involved too: Few people
want to breath the air of
C.
But most environmental issues look largely expressive:
1.
Recycling
2.
Preserving wild lands
3.
Endangered species
4.
Conservation
5.
Logging
D.
Moreover, even for the more instrumental-looking problems, voters are
usually bizarrely hostile to "the easy way out":
1.
Emissions trading, domestic and international
2.
Planting trees as carbon sinks
3.
Liming lakes to counter acid rain
4.
Privatizing common resources
5.
Geoengineering
E.
An overwhelming majority of Americans prefer to hang out at malls than
camp out in the wilderness for fun.
But what politician would dare to advocate privatizing the national
parks so Americans have more money to spend at the mall?
F.
Simple explanation: Voter-on-voter externalities lead democracy to
deliver a highly inefficient outcome.
IX.
Answering Wittman, I
A.
To my mind, expressive voting theory is the first pillar of a
thoughtful reply to Wittman. It
shows that to a large degree, voters aren't even trying to "make
democracy work."
B.
Rather, democracy's lack of incentives induces them to focus
lop-sidedly on symbols, entertainment, personalities, and so on.
C.
Key asymmetry between politics and markets: The low probability of
being decisive leads to systematic under-valuation of instrumental
concerns.
D.
Expressive voting theory helps us understand why the drama of politics
dominates over substance.
Politicians are just competitively playing to their audience.
E.
Other supply-side implications?
F.
Can expressive voting theory breathe new life into old political
failures?
1.
Pork barrel politics
2.
Concentrated interests
3.
Bureaucracy
4.
Political advertising and special interests