Cartels That Vote: Agricultural Marketing Boards and Induced Voting Behavior

Abstract

Our goal in this research project is to understand the behavior of administrative committees authorized to restrict volume. Understanding this behavior is interesting in its own right and in addition may clarify how other cartels operate. Like every cartel, these administrative committees must grapple with difficult collective choice problems; however, they are not burdened with the enforcement problems that beset the typical cartel. Administrative committees afford students of cartel behavior three advantages: (1) their collective choice mechanism (majority-rule voting) is explicity, (2) their meetings are open to the public, and (3) their public records reveal how each committee member voted on each proposed volume restriction (no matter whether it passed or failed).