IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ajk/ajkdps/289.html

Informal Elections with Dispersed Information: Protests, Petitions, and Nonbinding Voting

Author

Listed:
  • Mehmet Ekmekci

    (Boston College, Department of Economics)

  • Stephan Lauermann

    (University of Bonn, Department of Economics)

Abstract

We study information transmission through informal elections. Our leading example is that of protests in which there may be positive costs or benefits of participation. The aggregate turnout provides information to a policy maker. However, the presence of activists adds noise to the turnout. The interplay between noise and participation costs leads to strategic substitution and complementarity effects in citizens’ participation choices, and we characterize the implications for the informativeness of protests. In particular, we show that rather than being a friction, costs may facilitate information transmission by lending credibility to protest participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mehmet Ekmekci & Stephan Lauermann, 2024. "Informal Elections with Dispersed Information: Protests, Petitions, and Nonbinding Voting," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 289, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:289
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_289_2024.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kartik, Navin, 2007. "A note on cheap talk and burned money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 749-758, September.
    2. Timothy Feddersen & Alvaro Sandroni, 2006. "A Theory of Participation in Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1271-1282, September.
    3. Evren, Özgür, 2012. "Altruism and voting: A large-turnout result that does not rely on civic duty or cooperative behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2124-2157.
    4. Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1997. "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1029-1058, September.
    5. Thomas Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1983. "A strategic calculus of voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 7-53, January.
    6. Myerson, Roger B., 1998. "Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 111-131, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    2. Bhattacharya, Sourav & Duffy, John & Kim, Sun-Tak, 2014. "Compulsory versus voluntary voting: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 111-131.
    3. Marco Faravelli & Kenan Kalayci & Carlos Pimienta, 2020. "Costly voting: a large-scale real effort experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 468-492, June.
    4. Marina Agranov & Jacob K Goeree & Julian Romero & Leeat Yariv, 2018. "What Makes Voters Turn Out: The Effects of Polls and Beliefs," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 825-856.
    5. Nikitas Konstantinidis, 2013. "Optimal committee design and political participation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(4), pages 443-466, October.
    6. Faravelli, Marco & Man, Priscilla & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Mandate and paternalism: A theory of large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-23.
    7. John Duffy & Sourav Bhattacharya & Sun-Tak Kim, 2012. "Compulsory versus Voluntary Voting: An Experimental Study," Working Paper 492, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Aug 2013.
    8. Hans Peter Grüner & Thomas Tröger, 2019. "Linear Voting Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(6), pages 2037-2077, November.
    9. Vijay Krishna & John Morgan, 2015. "Majority Rule and Utilitarian Welfare," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 339-375, November.
    10. Morton, Rebecca B. & Ou, Kai, 2015. "What motivates bandwagon voting behavior: Altruism or a desire to win?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 224-241.
    11. Triossi, Matteo, 2013. "Costly information acquisition. Is it better to toss a coin?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 169-191.
    12. Dittmann, Ingolf & Kübler, Dorothea & Maug, Ernst & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2007. "Why votes have a value," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2007-068, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    13. Ambrus, Attila & Greiner, Ben & Sastro, Anne, 2017. "The case for nil votes: Voter behavior under asymmetric information in compulsory and voluntary voting systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 34-48.
    14. François Maniquet & Massimo Morelli, 2015. "Approval quorums dominate participation quorums," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 1-27, June.
    15. Alberto Grillo, 2017. "Risk aversion and bandwagon effect in the pivotal voter model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 465-482, September.
    16. Christina Luxen, 2020. "Pollsand Elections: Strategic Respondents and Turnout Implications," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 020, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    17. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    18. Tasos Kalandrakis, 2009. "Robust rational turnout," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 41(2), pages 317-343, November.
    19. Ernst Maug & Bilge Yilmaz, "undated". "Two-Class Voting: A Mechanism for Conflict Resolution?," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 4-00, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    20. Bilge Yilmaz, "undated". "Strategic Voting and Proxy Contests," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 5-00, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ECONtribute Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econtribute.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.