TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bernheim,B. Douglas
AU  - Rangel,Antonio
AU  - Rayo,Luis
TI  - Democratic Policy Making with Real-Time Agenda Setting: Part 1
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8973
PY  - 2002
Y2  - May 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8973
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8973.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
B. Douglas Bernheim
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: 650/725-8732
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: bernheim@stanford.edu

Antonio Rangel
Department of Economics
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91125
Tel: (626) 395-4091
E-Mail: rangel@hss.caltech.edu

Luis Rayo
Booth School of Business
University of Chicago
5807 S Woodlawn Ave
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: (773) 834-8544
Fax: (773) 702-0458
E-Mail: Luis.Rayo@business.utah.edu
AB  - We examine democratic policy-making in a simple institution with real-time agenda setting. Individuals are recognized sequentially. Once recognized, an individual makes a proposal, which is immediately put to a vote. If a proposal passes, it supercedes all previously passed proposals. The policy that emerges from this process is implemented. For some familiar classes of policy spaces with rich distributional politics, we show that the last proposer is effectively a dictator under a variety of natural conditions. Most notably, this occurs whenever a sufficient number of individuals have opportunities to make proposals. Thus, under reasonably general assumptions, control of the final proposal with real-time agenda setting confers as much power as control of the entire agenda.
ER  -