IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03637874.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Deliberation and epistemic democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Huihui Ding

    (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CY - CY Cergy Paris Université)

  • Marcus Pivato

    (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CY - CY Cergy Paris Université)

Abstract

We study the effects of deliberation on epistemic social choice, in two settings. In the first setting, the group faces a binary epistemic decision analogous to the Condorcet Jury Theorem. In the second setting, group members have probabilistic beliefs arising from their private information, and the group wants to aggregate these beliefs in a way that makes optimal use of this information. During deliberation, each agent discloses private information to persuade the other agents of her current views. But her views may also evolve over time, as she learns from other agents. This process will improve the performance of the group, but only under certain conditions; these involve the nature of the social decision rule, the group size, and also the presence of "neutral agents" whom the other agents try to persuade.

Suggested Citation

  • Huihui Ding & Marcus Pivato, 2021. "Deliberation and epistemic democracy," Post-Print hal-03637874, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03637874
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.020
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03637874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03637874/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann, 2021. "Social Epistemology," Post-Print halshs-02431971, HAL.
    2. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 1998. "Learning from Neighbours," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(3), pages 595-621.
    3. Rosenberg, Dinah & Solan, Eilon & Vieille, Nicolas, 2009. "Informational externalities and emergence of consensus," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 979-994, July.
    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. Keith E. Schnakenberg, 2017. "Informational Lobbying and Legislative Voting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(1), pages 129-145, January.
    6. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & Bauw, Eddy, 2014. "Judicial error by groups and individuals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 224-235.
    7. Klevorick, Alvin K. & Rothschild, Michael & Winship, Christopher, 1984. "Information processing and jury decisionmaking," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 245-278, April.
    8. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    9. Marcus Pivato, 2013. "Voting rules as statistical estimators," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 581-630, February.
    10. Glazer, Jacob & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2001. "Debates and Decisions: On a Rationale of Argumentation Rules," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 158-173, August.
    11. Jackson, Matthew O. & Tan, Xu, 2013. "Deliberation, disclosure of information, and voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 2-30.
    12. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2014. "Probabilistic Opinion Pooling," MPRA Paper 54806, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Munther A. Dahleh & Ilan Lobel & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Bayesian Learning in Social Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1201-1236.
    14. Jadbabaie, Ali & Molavi, Pooya & Sandroni, Alvaro & Tahbaz-Salehi, Alireza, 2012. "Non-Bayesian social learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 210-225.
    15. Javier Rivas & Carmelo Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2017. "Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(4), pages 395-429, July.
    16. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    17. Pivato, Marcus, 2017. "Epistemic democracy with correlated voters," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 51-69.
    18. Elisabeth Schulte, 2010. "Information aggregation and preference heterogeneity in committees," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(1), pages 97-118, July.
    19. Franz Dietrich, 2010. "Bayesian group belief," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(4), pages 595-626, October.
    20. Houy, Nicolas & Ménager, Lucie, 2008. "Communication, consensus and order. Who wants to speak first?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 140-152, November.
    21. Coughlan, Peter J., 2000. "In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Mistrials, Communication, and Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 375-393, June.
    22. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter Norman, 2006. "Professional advice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 120-142, January.
    23. Parikh, Rohit & Krasucki, Paul, 1990. "Communication, consensus, and knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 178-189, October.
    24. Krasucki, Paul, 1996. "Protocols Forcing Consensus," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 266-272, July.
    25. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez‐Richet, 2014. "Certifiable Pre‐Play Communication: Full Disclosure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1093-1131, May.
    26. Mark Quement & Venuga Yokeeswaran, 2015. "Subgroup deliberation and voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 155-186, June.
    27. Berg, Sven, 1997. "Indirect voting systems: Banzhaf numbers, majority functions and collective competence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 557-573, September.
    28. Cave, Jonathan A. K., 1983. "Learning to agree," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 147-152.
    29. Bacharach, Michael, 1985. "Some extensions of a claim of Aumann in an axiomatic model of knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 167-190, October.
    30. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    31. Gabrielle Demange & Karine van der Straeten, 2017. "Communicating on electoral platforms," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01630623, HAL.
    32. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Opinion Dynamics and Learning in Social Networks," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.
    33. Mark Thordal-Le Quement, 2013. "Communication compatible voting rules," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 479-507, April.
    34. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2001. "Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 393-421, September.
    35. Schnakenberg, Keith E., 2015. "Expert advice to a voting body," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 102-113.
    36. Geanakoplos, John D. & Polemarchakis, Heraklis M., 1982. "We can't disagree forever," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 192-200, October.
    37. Dietrich, Franz, 2016. "A Theory Of Bayesian Groups," MPRA Paper 75363, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    38. Peter M. DeMarzo & Dimitri Vayanos & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 2003. "Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional Opinions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 909-968.
    39. Jacob Glazer & Ariel Rubinstein, 2004. "On Optimal Rules of Persuasion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1715-1736, November.
    40. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2011. "An Experimental Study of Collective Deliberation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 893-921, May.
    41. Dimitri Landa & Adam Meirowitz, 2009. "Game Theory, Information, and Deliberative Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 427-444, April.
    42. Nicolas Houy & Lucie Ménager, 2008. "Communication, consensus and order. Who wants to speak first?," Post-Print hal-00650870, HAL.
    43. Gerardi, Dino & Yariv, Leeat, 2007. "Deliberative voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 317-338, May.
    44. Nichole Szembrot, 2017. "Are voters cursed when politicians conceal policy preferences?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 25-41, October.
    45. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4kpa2fek478tla1o86g6n9jb6v is not listed on IDEAS
    46. Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar, 2003. "Bayesian learning in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 329-346, November.
    47. Ladha, Krishna K., 1995. "Information pooling through majority-rule voting: Condorcet's jury theorem with correlated votes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 353-372, May.
    48. Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2014. "Does one Bayesian make a difference?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 423-452.
    49. Bauke Visser & Otto H. Swank, 2007. "On Committees of Experts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 337-372.
    50. Dickson, Eric S. & Hafer, Catherine & Landa, Dimitri, 2015. "Learning from Debate: Institutions and Information," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 449-472, September.
    51. Deimen, Inga & Ketelaar, Felix & Le Quement, Mark T., 2015. "Consistency and communication in committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 24-35.
    52. Shin Hyun Song, 1994. "The Burden of Proof in a Game of Persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 253-264, October.
    53. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    54. Patrick Hummel, 2012. "Deliberation in large juries with diverse preferences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 595-608, March.
    55. Austen-Smith, David & Feddersen, Timothy J., 2006. "Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty, and Voting Rules," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 209-217, May.
    56. Ilan Lobel & Evan Sadler, 2016. "Preferences, Homophily, and Social Learning," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 564-584, June.
    57. Elchanan Mossel & Allan Sly & Omer Tamuz, 2015. "Strategic Learning and the Topology of Social Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1755-1794, September.
    58. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    59. 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.
    60. Acemoglu, Daron & Ozdaglar, Asuman & ParandehGheibi, Ali, 2010. "Spread of (mis)information in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 194-227, November.
    61. Daron Acemoğlu & Giacomo Como & Fabio Fagnani & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2013. "Opinion Fluctuations and Disagreement in Social Networks," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(1), pages 1-27, February.
    62. Wiktor Adamowicz & Michel Hanemann & Joffre Swait & Reed Johnson & David Layton & Michel Regenwetter & Torsten Reimer & Robert Sorkin, 2005. "Decision Strategy and Structure in Households: A “Groups” Perspective," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 387-399, December.
    63. Mathis, Jã‰Rã”Me, 2011. "Deliberation with Evidence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 516-529, August.
    64. , & ,, 2015. "Information diffusion in networks through social learning," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), September.
    65. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    66. ,, 2013. "A general framework for rational learning in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), January.
    67. Doraszelski Ulrich & Gerardi Dino & Squintani Francesco, 2003. "Communication and Voting with Double-Sided Information," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-41, August.
    68. Rajiv Sethi & Muhamet Yildiz, 2012. "Public Disagreement," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 57-95, August.
    69. Neilson, William S. & Winter, Harold, 2008. "Votes based on protracted deliberations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 308-321, July.
    70. Conor Mayo-Wilson & Kevin Zollman & David Danks, 2013. "Wisdom of crowds versus groupthink: learning in groups and in isolation," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(3), pages 695-723, August.
    71. Michael J. Fishman & Kathleen M. Hagerty, 1990. "The Optimal Amount of Discretion to Allow in Disclosure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 427-444.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann, 2022. "Deliberation and the Wisdom of Crowds," Post-Print halshs-03667931, HAL.

    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. Buechel, Berno & Hellmann, Tim & Klößner, Stefan, 2015. "Opinion dynamics and wisdom under conformity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 240-257.
    2. Jérôme Mathis & Marcello Puca & Simone M. Sepe, 2021. "Deliberative Institutions and Optimality," CSEF Working Papers 614, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 09 Jun 2021.
    3. Azomahou, T. & Opolot, D., 2014. "Beliefs dynamics in communication networks," MERIT Working Papers 2014-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    4. Li, Wei & Tan, Xu, 2021. "Cognitively-constrained learning from neighbors," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 32-54.
    5. Jan Hązła & Ali Jadbabaie & Elchanan Mossel & M. Amin Rahimian, 2021. "Bayesian Decision Making in Groups is Hard," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 632-654, March.
    6. Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Arieliy, Itai, 2015. "A General Model of Boundedly Rational Observational Learning: Theory and Experiment," IESE Research Papers D/1120, IESE Business School.
    7. Quement, Mark T. Le & Marcin, Isabel, 2020. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 449-468.
    8. Javier Rivas & Carmelo Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2017. "Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(4), pages 395-429, July.
    9. Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Taalaibekova, Akylai, 2019. "Opinion formation and targeting when persuaders have extreme and centrist opinions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 9-27.
    10. Foerster, Manuel, 2019. "Dynamics of strategic information transmission in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    11. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    12. Dasaratha, Krishna & He, Kevin, 2020. "Network structure and naive sequential learning," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(2), May.
    13. Mark T. Le Quement & Isabel Marcin, 2016. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Oct 2016.
    14. Jianan Wang, 2022. "Partially verifiable deliberation in voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 457-481, March.
    15. Buechel, Berno & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2019. "The swing voter's curse in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 241-268.
    16. Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2014. "Does one Bayesian make a difference?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 423-452.
    17. Elchanan Mossel & Allan Sly & Omer Tamuz, 2015. "Strategic Learning and the Topology of Social Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1755-1794, September.
    18. Deimen, Inga & Ketelaar, Felix & Le Quement, Mark T., 2015. "Consistency and communication in committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 24-35.
    19. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Tamuz, Omer & Welch, Ivo, 2021. "Information Cascades and Social Learning," MPRA Paper 107927, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Syngjoo Choi & Edoardo Gallo & Shachar Kariv, 2015. "Networks in the laboratory," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1551, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deliberation; Epistemic social choice; Condorcet Jury Theorem; Probabilistic belief aggregation; Multiplicative pooling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:hal:journl:hal-03637874. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.