Abstract:
This paper studies the strategic foundations of the Representative Voter Theorem (Rothstein, 1991), also called the second version of the Median Voter Theorem. As a by-product, it also considers the existence of non-trivial strategy-proof social choice functions over the domain of single-crossing preference profiles. The main result presented here is that single-crossing preferences constitute a domain restriction on the real line that allows not only majority voting equilibria, but also non-manipulable choice rules. In particular, this is true for the median choice rule, which is found to be strategy-proof and group-strategic-proof not only over the full set of alternatives, but also over every possible policy agenda. The paper also shows the close relation between single-crossing and order-restriction. And it uses this relation together with the strategy-proofness of the median choice rule to prove that the collective outcome predicted by the Representative Voter Theorem can be implemented in dominant strategies through a simple mechanism in which, first, individuals select a representative among themselves, and then the representative voter chooses a policy to be implemented by the planner.