Chapter 18: Public EconomyContent check — Microeconomics, Chapter 18: Public Economy

All other things being equal, voter turnout should increase as the cost of casting an informed vote decreases.

The cost in time of voting, transportation costs to and from the polling place, and any additional time and effort spent becoming informed about the candidates.

The costs of organization and the small benefit to the individual.

Domestic cotton producers would lobby heavily to protect themselves from the competition, whereas the consumers have little incentive to organize.

True. This is exactly what occurs in a voting cycle. That is, the majority can prefer policy A to policy B, policy B to policy C, but also prefer policy C to policy A. Then, the majority will never reach a conclusive outcome.

The problem is an example of a voting cycle. The group will vote for mountain biking over canoeing by 2–1. It will vote for canoeing over the beach by 2–1. If mountain biking is preferred to canoeing and canoeing is preferred to the beach, it might seem that it must be true that mountain biking is the favorite. But in a vote of the beach versus mountain biking, the beach wins by a 2–1 vote. When a voting cycle occurs, choosing a single favorite that is always preferred by a majority becomes impossible.

The four Coca-Cola candidates compete with each other for Coca-Cola voters, whereas everyone who prefers Pepsi had only one candidate to vote for. Thus the will of the majority is not satisfied.