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Information aggregation failure in a model of social mobility

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  • Acharya, Avidit

Abstract

I study a model in which high and low income voters must decide between continuing with a status quo policy or switching to a different policy, which is more redistributive. Under the status quo policy, low income voters may get an opportunity to become high income earners. Such opportunities are expected to arise infrequently, so in expectation these voters prefer the more redistributive policy. Nevertheless, there is an equilibrium in which the vast majority of them cast their ballots in favor of re-electing the less redistributive status quo. Although these voters are fully strategic and correctly assess their chances for upward mobility, they vote exactly as if they are naive voters who over-estimate their chances of becoming rich. As the size of the electorate grows, the status quo policy can be re-elected with certainty, and the election fails to fully aggregate information.

Suggested Citation

  • Acharya, Avidit, 2016. "Information aggregation failure in a model of social mobility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 257-272.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:100:y:2016:i:c:p:257-272
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2016.09.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Núñez, Matías & Pivato, Marcus, 2019. "Truth-revealing voting rules for large populations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 285-305.
    2. Tajika, Tomoya, 2022. "Voting on tricky questions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 380-389.
    3. Carl Heese & Stephan Lauermann, 2019. "Persuasion and Information Aggregation in Large Elections," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2019_128, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    4. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2022. "Wisdom of the crowd? Information aggregation in representative democracy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 86-95.
    5. Carl Heese & Stephan Lauermann, 2021. "Persuasion and Information Aggregation in Elections," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 112, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    6. Paulo Barelli & Sourav Bhattacharya & Lucas Siga, 2022. "Full Information Equivalence in Large Elections," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2161-2185, September.
    7. Svetlana Kosterina, 2023. "Information structures and information aggregation in threshold equilibria in elections," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(2), pages 493-522, February.
    8. Tajika, Tomoya, 2018. "Collective Mistakes: Intuition Aggregation for a Trick Question under Strategic Voting," Discussion Paper Series 674, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    9. Jeong, Daeyoung, 2019. "Using cheap talk to polarize or unify a group of decision makers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 50-80.
    10. Tomoya Tajika, 2021. "Polarization and inefficient information aggregation under strategic voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(1), pages 67-100, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Redistributive politics; Social mobility; Strategic voting; Information aggregation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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