IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.15454.html

Fact-Finding in Social Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Boris Ginzburg

Abstract

This paper models voters who invest effort to determine whether a particular claim relevant to their voting choices is correct. If a voter succeeds in determining whether the claim is correct, this information is shared via a social network. I show that increased connectivity makes voters more informed about basic facts, but less informed about complicated issues. At the same time, polarization makes voters less informed overall.

Suggested Citation

  • Boris Ginzburg, 2025. "Fact-Finding in Social Networks," Papers 2509.15454, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.15454
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.15454
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pogorelskiy, Kirill & Shum, Matthew, 2019. "News We Like to Share: How News Sharing on Social Networks Influences Voting Outcomes," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 427, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Palfrey, Thomas R. & Rosenthal, Howard, 1984. "Participation and the provision of discrete public goods: a strategic analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 171-193, July.
    3. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    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. Boris Ginzburg, 2023. "Slacktivism," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 35(2), pages 126-143, April.
    2. J. K. Pappalardo, 2022. "Economics of Consumer Protection: Contributions and Challenges in Estimating Consumer Injury and Evaluating Consumer Protection Policy," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 201-238, June.
    3. Amihai Glazer, 2014. "The Profit-maximizing Non-profit," Working Papers 131404, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    4. Tim S. G. van Eck & Pieter Kleer & Johan S. H. van Leeuwaarden, 2026. "Distributionally Robust Monopoly Pricing: Switching from Low to High Prices in Volatile Markets," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 1248-1265, July.
    5. Zihao Chen & Xingyu Fu & Pin Gao & Ying-Ju Chen, 2026. "Sound of Silence: When to Conceal Attribute Information? The Roles of Consumer Search, Inventory, and Channel Structure," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 783-801, May.
    6. Kawasaki, Ryo & Muto, Shigeo, 2009. "Farsighted stability in provision of perfectly "Lumpy" public goods," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 98-109, July.
    7. Duk Gyoo Kim & Daehong Min & John Wooders, 2026. "Viable Nash equilibria: an experiment," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 81(1), pages 77-92, February.
    8. Germano, Fabrizio & Gómez, Vicenç & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2026. "Ranking for engagement: How social media algorithms fuel misinformation and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Robert P. Inman, 2008. "Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism," NBER Working Papers 13735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Liang Guo, 2025. "Selling Data to Marketers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(10), pages 8823-8841, October.
    12. Kawamura, Kohei, 2008. "Communication for Public Goods," SIRE Discussion Papers 2008-25, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    13. Tommaso Bondi & Omid Rafieian & Yunfei (Jesse) Yao, 2026. "Privacy and Polarization: An Inference-Based Framework," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 72(2), pages 1389-1409, February.
    14. Ryusuke Shinohara, 2014. "Participation and demand levels for a joint project," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(4), pages 925-952, December.
    15. Dufwenberg, Martin & Patel, Amrish, 2017. "Reciprocity networks and the participation problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 260-272.
    16. Carpio, Carlos E. & Mathews, Leah G. & Boonsaeng, Tullaya & Perrett, Allison & Descieux, Katie, "undated". "Evaluating the Marketing Impact of a Regional Branding Program Using Contingent Valuation Methods: The Case of the Appalachian Grown™ Branding Program," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205800, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Sun, Cheng, 2025. "Managing the advertising intensity: The role of the marginal disutility from advertising," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    18. DavidP. Myatt & Chris Wallace, 2009. "Evolution, Teamwork and Collective Action: Production Targets in the Private Provision of Public Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 61-90, January.
    19. Dorothée Brécard & Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2020. "The market for "harmful component-free" products under pressure from the NGOs," Working Papers halshs-02878337, HAL.
    20. Hiroaki Sakamoto & Christian Traeger, 2025. "Self-enforcing Stable Sets," CESifo Working Paper Series 12360, CESifo.

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:2509.15454. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    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.