We develop a definition of equilibrium for agenda formation in general voting settings. The definition is independent of any protocol. We show that the set of equilibrium outcomes for any Pareto efficient voting rule is uniquely determined, and in fact coincides with that of the outcomes generated by considering all full agendas. Under voting by successive elimination (or amendment), the set of equilibrium outcomes corresponds with the Banks set. We also examine the implications in several specific settings and show that studying equilibrium agendas can lead to sharp predictions, in contrast with well-known
chaos
theorems.
Financial support under NSF grant SES-9986190 and an RTDF grant from the University of Warwick are gratefully acknowledged. We thank John Duggan, Martin Osborne, and an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions, and participants at the Sixth International Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare for helpful comments.