Suppose we have the following three projects up for vote: A Highway, a Homeless Shelter, and a Port. There are three representatives who will individually vote on the projects. The net social benefits to the constituents of each representative are given in the table below. Note these benefits may be negative, meaning that the policy actually does harm to the constituents of the representative.
|
|
|
100
|
-75
|
-130
|
|
-40
|
150
|
-25
|
|
-100
|
-80
|
350
|
a. What are the total benefits from each project?
b. If a vote were held for each project, what would be the result for each project? Is this socially optimal?
c. If these representatives were to logroll (trade votes) to get their preferred policy to pass, what would be the result?
d. What's the change in well-being due to the logrolling?
e. What is the connection between this problem and the issue of "special interests" in politics? Write a short paragraph commenting on this connection.