Participatory Budgeting Designs for the Real World

Participatory budgeting engages the public in process of allocating money to different types projects. PB designs differ how voters are asked express their preferences over candidate projects and these aggregated determine which fund. This paper studies two fundamental questions design. Which voting format aggregation method use, evaluate outcomes design decisions? We conduct an extensive empirical study 1 800 participants vote four participatory elections a controlled setting practical effects choice rule.We find that k-approval leads best user experience. With respect rule, greedy highly sensitive input used fraction population participates. The equal shares, contrast, not type used, remarkably stable even when majority does participate election. These results carry valuable insights for practitioners social researchers.