Voter Rationality Revisited: Strategy-Proofness Against Boundedly Rational or Behavioral Agents

Most strategy-proofness results (e.g., Dasgupta & Maskin 2020, Moulin 1980) assume fully rational agents. However, recent work (Bandhu 2017; Bahel 2024) hints at the impact of behavioral deviations. This research would systematically characterize how common behavioral phenomena—such as loss aversion, limited attention, or cognitive biases—affect the practical manipulability of voting rules previously considered to be strategy-proof. Using experimental economics and agent-based simulations, test whether “behaviorally robust” strategy-proofness can be defined and achieved, possibly leading to new axioms or voting rules that are resilient not just to strategic, but also to boundedly rational manipulation. This challenges a core assumption of the field and could lead to more realistic, human-centric voting mechanisms.

References:

1. Strategy-Proofness, Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives, and Majority Rule. P. Dasgupta, E. Maskin (2020). American Economic Review: Insights.
2. On strategy-proofness and single peakedness. H. Moulin (1980).
3. Anonymous and Strategy-Proof Voting under Subjective Expected Utility Preferences. Eric Bahel (2024).
4. Strategy-Proof Random Social Choice Rules with Behavioral Agents 1. Sarvesh Bandhu (2017).