Subsidizing Coal Mining and Orange Growing Have Both Been Found

question 114

Multiple Choice

Subsidizing coal mining and orange growing have both been found to be economically inefficient in that the costs outweigh the benefits. However, a subsidy on coal mining would help the coal producers in West Virginia and a subsidy on orange growing would help the orange farmers in Florida. So the senator from West Virginia approaches the senator from Florida and says that he will vote for the orange subsidy if the Florida senator votes for the coal-mining subsidy. The Florida senator agrees. Which term best describes what just happened?

• A) the shortsightedness effect
• B) logrolling
• C) the use of user charges
• D) the political voter theory

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Definitions:

Pairwise Majority Voting

A voting system in which each option is compared head-to-head with every other option, with the option winning the most direct comparisons being considered the overall winner.

Condorcet Paradox

A situation in social choice theory where collective preferences can be cyclic (not transitive) despite the transitive preferences of individual voters.

Majority Rule

A decision-making principle where the preferences or decisions supported by more than half of the participants are adopted.

Transitive Preferences

A condition in decision-making where if an individual prefers option A over option B and prefers option B over option C, then the individual also prefers option A over option C.