Project Abstract The proposal contains two parts. The first and main part is joint work with Michele Piccione. In voting models, which underlie much recent research in political economy, the voting can have two roles: it can aggregate private information and / or preferences. Whereas in most voting models the electorate votes simultaneously on each issue, we analyze sequential voting games. This makes it possible to address many interesting questions on both roles of voting. For example, concerning aggregating information, which mechanism is better: simultaneous or sequential voting? When the electorate can choose when to vote, will they choose a method that is efficient for aggregating information? We also study the implications of two opposing considerations in voting earlier or later: early voters are more likely to determine the set of `relevant` alternatives and later voters will know which alternatives are relevant and hence are less likely to `waste` their vote. What sequential structures will then occur when voters can chose when to vote? Will voters who expect to have similar preferences choose to vote close together or far apart in time? The project addresses these and other questions that arise from considering sequential voting environments. This sheds light on the implications of states `gaming` on when to have their primaries, or of announcing the outcomes of votes in some districts before voting is completed in others. The second part contains two projects on the foundations of game theory (but that are otherwise unrelated). The first, joint with Bart Lipman and Aldo Rustichini, derives unique subjective probabilities for the model of unforeseen contingencies proposed by Kreps* and further extended by the three of us in earlier work. The second, joint with Drew Fudenberg and David Levine, develops, for games of incomplete information, solution concepts that are based on learning, such as the notion of self-confirming equilibria, and that incorporate rationality as well. *D. M. Kreps (1979): `A Representation Theorem for 'Preference for Flexibility',` Econometrica 47 565 - 576.
