Incentives to engage in the exchange of votes in legislatures, or logrolling, have existed since the inception of legislatures. Most prominently, logrolling is alleged in the United States, where a plurality rule is employed to elect representatives from single-member districts. In legislatures elected by proportional representation, incentives to exchange votes also exist, however. Often that exchange is more formalized via the formation of a governing coalition (Schofield 1987a).

In the political science literature, early discussions of logrolling go back at least to Bentley (1907). From then until the early 1960s, the exchange of votes in legislatures had been viewed with disdain and thought of as welfare reducing. Beginning with the seminal contribution of Buchanan and Tullock (1962), logrolling was seen as potentially welfare enhancing. Today, no consensus exists in the normative public choice literature as to whether logrolling is on net welfare enhancing or welfare reducing, that is, whether logrolling constitutes a positive- or a negative-sum game. This essay will describe various arguments and avenues via which the exchange of votes can be welfare enhancing or welfare reducing. I will address the following questions: under what conditions logrolling may be welfare enhancing, whether a logrolling mechanism can be designed that has favorable properties, and whether related voting processes may maximize welfare. The public choice literature has wedded logrolling with cyclical majorities by showing that some of the potentially negative impacts of logrolling stem from the possibility of unstable majorities.