Skip to main content
Log in

The private and social value of information in majority decisions

  • Published:
Political Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper contrasts the value of information at the private level with the social value when all voters have access to information. A sequence of examples illustrates how the private and social value of information changes as the distribution of benefits and costs derived from a project varies across individuals and states of the world.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Downs, A. (1957).An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gersbach, H. (1992).Institutions and the Acquisition of Information in Legislatures, mimeo, University of Basel.

  • Grofman, B., and Owen, G. (1986). Condorcet Models: Avenues for future research. In:Information Pooling and Group Decision Making. Greenwich, CT.

  • Gould, J. P. (1974). Risk, stochastic preference, and the value of information.Journal of Economic Theory 8: 64–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hakansson, J., Kunkel, J. G., and Ohlson, J. A. (1982). Sufficient and necessary conditions for information to have social value in pure exchange.The Journal of Finance 37(5): 1169–1181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirshleifer, J. (1971). The private and social value of information and the reward to incentive activity.The American Economic Review 61: 561–574.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lohmann, S. (1991).A Welfare Analysis of Political Action. Research Paper No. 1132, Stanford University.

  • McKelvey, R. (1979). General conditions for global intransitivities in formal voting models.Econometrica 47: 1085–1112.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gersbach, H. The private and social value of information in majority decisions. Polit Behav 15, 15–23 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993414

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993414

Keywords

Navigation