IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/114800.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When consensus hurts: experts' advice and electoral support

Author

Listed:
  • De Moragas, Antoni-Italo

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze how voters optimally aggregate and use the information provided by informed experts. I find that, when citizens do not observe the vested interest of each expert and their interests are sufficiently correlated, the relationship between the share of experts endorsing an alternative and the share of citizens voting for it is non-monotonic. The explanation is that consensus among experts can be reached either because all experts share the same information or because they ignore the information they have and provide their advice according to their interests. The non-monotonic result holds even if experts are strategic.

Suggested Citation

  • De Moragas, Antoni-Italo, 2020. "When consensus hurts: experts' advice and electoral support," MPRA Paper 114800, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:114800
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/114800/1/MPRA_paper_114800.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cheng, Ing-Haw & Hsiaw, Alice, 2022. "Distrust in experts and the origins of disagreement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Pietro Ortoleva & Erik Snowberg, 2015. "Overconfidence in Political Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 504-535, February.
    3. Wolinsky, Asher, 2002. "Eliciting information from multiple experts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 141-160, October.
    4. Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Economic Experts versus Average Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 636-642, May.
    5. Gerardi, Dino & McLean, Richard & Postlewaite, Andrew, 2009. "Aggregation of expert opinions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 339-371, March.
    6. Marco Battaglini, 2002. "Multiple Referrals and Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1379-1401, July.
    7. Callander, Steven & Hörner, Johannes, 2009. "The wisdom of the minority," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1421-1439.2, July.
    8. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2004. "The art of conversation: eliciting information from experts through multi-stage communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 147-179, August.
    9. Lupia, Arthur, 1994. "Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 63-76, March.
    10. Gilat Levy & Ronny Razin, 2015. "Correlation Neglect, Voting Behavior, and Information Aggregation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1634-1645, April.
    11. Matthew Rabin & Joel L. Schrag, 1999. "First Impressions Matter: A Model of Confirmatory Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 37-82.
    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. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    2. Li, Zhuozheng & Rantakari, Heikki & Yang, Huanxing, 2016. "Competitive cheap talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 65-89.
    3. Tymofiy Mylovanov & Andriy Zapechelnyuk, 2013. "Optimal Arbitration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 769-785, August.
    4. Migrow, Dimitri, 2021. "Designing communication hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Cheng, Ing-Haw & Hsiaw, Alice, 2022. "Distrust in experts and the origins of disagreement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    6. Aislinn Bohren & Daniel Hauser, 2018. "Social Learning with Model Misspeciification: A Framework and a Robustness Result," PIER Working Paper Archive 18-017, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Jul 2018.
    7. Ambrus, Attila & Lu, Shih En, 2014. "Almost fully revealing cheap talk with imperfectly informed senders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 174-189.
    8. Yuk-fai Fong & Peter Eso, 2008. "Wait and See," 2008 Meeting Papers 303, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Feddersen, Timothy & Gradwohl, Ronen, 2020. "Decentralized advice," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    10. Antony Millner & Hélène Ollivier, 2016. "Beliefs, Politics, and Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 226-244.
    11. Minardi, Stefania & Savochkin, Andrei, 2019. "Subjective contingencies and limited Bayesian updating," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-45.
    12. López-Pérez, Raúl & Pintér, Ágnes & Sánchez-Mangas, Rocío, 2022. "Some conditions (not) affecting selection neglect: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 140-157.
    13. Dezsö Szalay & Ramon Arean, 2005. "Communicating with a Team of Experts," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 05.12, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    14. Alp Atakan & Mehmet Ekmekci & Ludovic Renou, 2021. "Cross-verification and Persuasive Cheap Talk," Papers 2102.13562, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    15. Kawamura, Kohei, 2008. "Communication for Public Goods," SIRE Discussion Papers 2008-25, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    16. Golosov, Mikhail & Skreta, Vasiliki & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Wilson, Andrea, 2014. "Dynamic strategic information transmission," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 304-341.
    17. Gerardi, Dino & McLean, Richard & Postlewaite, Andrew, 2009. "Aggregation of expert opinions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 339-371, March.
    18. Salvatore Nunnari & Jan Zapal, 2017. "A Model of Focusing in Political Choice," Working Papers 599, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    19. Hongbin Cai, 2009. "Costly participation and heterogeneous preferences in informational committees," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 173-189, March.
    20. Arnold Polanski & Mark Quement, 2023. "The battle of opinion: dynamic information revelation by ideological senders," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(2), pages 463-483, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; Experts; Consensus.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    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:pra:mprapa:114800. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.