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A note on consensus and common knowledge of an aggregate of decisions

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  • Lucie Ménager

    (EUREQua)

Abstract

McKelvey and Page [1986] investigate the effect that common knowledge of an aggregate statistic of individuals' actions has on individual beliefs, assuming that public information can be expressed as a function of the individuals' posterior probabilities of some event. We show that this kind of statistic is not equivalent to a pure function of individuals’ decisions in informational terms. Assuming that all agents follow the same union-consistency decision rule as in Cave [1983], we give a sufficient condition on the aggregate statistic of decisions such that the common knowledge of this statistic implies the equality of all decisions. We also prove that if information partitions are finite, an iterative process of public announcement of the statistic, where agents update their decision on the basis of their private information plus the announced value of the statistic, achieves the situation of common knowledge, and hence converges to an equilibrium characterized by equality of decisions. We then show that all admissible statistics are equivalent in informational terms, which is there's no admissible statistic that leads to a better consensus than an other. Finally, we show that given any decision rule, there exists a refinement of this decision rule that achieves the situation of perfect information

Suggested Citation

  • Lucie Ménager, 2004. "A note on consensus and common knowledge of an aggregate of decisions," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques v04006, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    • Handle: RePEc:mse:wpsorb:v04006
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nielsen, Lars Tyge, et al, 1990. "Common Knowledge of an Aggregate of Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1235-1239, September.
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    3. Geanakoplos, John D. & Polemarchakis, Heraklis M., 1982. "We can't disagree forever," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 192-200, October.
    4. Nielsen, Lars Tyge, 1995. "Common Knowledge of a Multivariate Aggregate Statistic," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(1), pages 207-216, February.
    5. McKelvey, Richard D & Page, Talbot, 1986. "Common Knowledge, Consensus, and Aggregate Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 109-127, January.
    6. Parikh, Rohit & Krasucki, Paul, 1990. "Communication, consensus, and knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 178-189, October.
    7. Cave, Jonathan A. K., 1983. "Learning to agree," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 147-152.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Partitional models; common knowledge; consensus; decision rules; aggregate information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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