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Rational ignorance and voting behavior

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Author Info

  • César Martinelli

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Abstract

We model a two-alternative election in which voters may acquire information about which is the best alternative for all voters. Voters differ in their cost of acquiring information. We show that as the number of voters increases, the fraction of voters who acquire information declines to zero. However, if the support of the cost distribution is not bounded away from zero, there is an equilibrium with some information acquisition for arbitrarily large electorates. This equilibrium dominates in terms of welfare any equilibrium without information acquisition--even though generally there is too little information acquisition with respect to an optimal strategy profile.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00182-006-0051-4
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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Springer in its journal International Journal of Game Theory.

Volume (Year): 35 (2007)
Issue (Month): 3 (February)
Pages: 315-335

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Handle: RePEc:spr:jogath:v:35:y:2007:i:3:p:315-335

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Web page: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00182/index.htm

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Related research

Keywords: Rational ignorance; Condorcet jury theorem; Strategic voting; Information acquisition; D72;

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References

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  1. Helios Herrera & César Martinelli, 2006. "Group Formation and Voter Participation," Levine's Bibliography 666156000000000463, UCLA Department of Economics.
  2. Kerstin Gerling & Hans Peter Grüner & Alexandra Kiel & Elisabeth Schulte, 2003. "Information acquisition and decision making in committees: A survey," Working Paper Series 256, European Central Bank.
  3. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias K., 2009. "Is mandatory voting better than voluntary voting?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 275-291, May.
  4. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191.
  5. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191, 01.
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Cited by:
  1. Hahn, Volker, 2012. "On the Optimal Size of Committees of Experts," Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62041, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  2. Cesar Martinelli, 2011. "Ignorance and Naivete in Large Elections," Working Papers 1107, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
  3. Matteo Triossiv, 2010. "Costly information acquisition. Better to toss a coin?," Documentos de Trabajo 267, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
  4. Christian Bruns, 2013. "Elections and Market Provision of Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 4091, CESifo Group Munich.

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