Results on Sophisticated Voting in an Experimental Setting

This research explores the extent of sophisticated voting in a simplified agenda setting. We begin from the commonly held presumption that decision makers (whether legislators or school board members) employ sophisticated strategies when voting. This viewpoint has been rigorously modeled under a variety of formal theories. However, given that there is little corroborative empirical evidence that decision makers use sophisticated voting strategies, we turn to a series of laboratory experiments designed to test the extent to which sophisticated voting is relied upon. Our findings are at odds with a general claim that sophisticated behavior is ubiquitous.