We study aggregation of information when voters can collect information of different precision, with increased precision entailing an increasing marginal cost. In order to properly understand the incentives to collect information we introduce another dimension of heterogeneity: on top of the ideological dimension we allow for different levels of intensity in preferences. Contrary to traditional models of endogenous information, in equilibrium, there are voters that use signals of different qualities. Our strategy to show existence allows us to deal with 1) different voting rules, 2) asymmetric priors, and 3) asymmetric distribution of types. After characterizing all symmetric Bayesian equilibria in pure strategies, we show that information aggregation implies a very unique relation between the parameters of the electorate and the voting rule. In a sense, information aggregation is a knife edge result: it is not robust to small changes in the electorate. We also show that, under the same symmetric conditions in Martinelli's (2006) more specialized model, the Condorcet Jury Theorem holds under the same cost conditions.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
7727.
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