Abstract
We study a model of costly voting over two alternatives, where agents’ preferences are determined by both (i) a private preference in favour of one alternative e.g. candidates’ policies, and (ii) heterogeneous information in the form of noisy signals about a commonly valued state of the world e.g. candidate competence. We show that depending on the level of the personal bias (weight on private preference), voting is either according to private preferences or according to signals. When voting takes place according to private preferences, there is an unique equilibrium with inefficiently high turnout. In contrast, when voting takes place according to signals, turnout is locally too low. Multiple Pareto-ranked voting equilibria may exist and in particular, compulsory voting may Pareto dominate voluntary voting. Moreover, an increase in personal bias can cause turnout to rise or fall, and an increase in the accuracy of information may cause a switch to voting on the basis of signals and thus lower turnout, even though it increases welfare.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Austen-Smith D, Banks JS (1996) Information aggregation, rationality and the condorcet jury theorem. Am Polit Sci Rev 90: 34–45
Borgers T (2004) Costly voting. Am Econ Rev 94(1): 57–66
Duggan J, Martinelli C (2001) A Bayesian theory of voting in juries. Games Econ Behav 37: 259–294
Feddersen T, Pessendorfer W (1997) Voting behavior and information aggregation in elections with private information. Econometrica 65(5): 1029–1058
Gerardi D, Yariv L (2005) Information acquisition in committees. unpublished paper, Yale University
Goeree JK, Grosser J (2004) False consensus voting and welfare reducing polls. mimeo, California Institute of Technology
Groseclose T (2001) A model of candidate location when one candidate has a valence advantage. Am J Polit Sci 45: 862–886
Krasa S, Polborn M (2006) Is mandatory voting better than voluntary voting? Games Econ Behav (forthcoming)
Martinelli C (2006) Would rational voters acquire costly information?. J Econ Theory 129(1): 225–251
McLennan A (1998) Consequences of the condorcet jury theorem for beneficial information aggregation by rational agents. Am Polit Sci Rev 92: 413–418
Mukhopadhaya K (2003) Jury size and the free rider problem. J Law Econ Organ 19: 24–44
Persico N (2004) Committee design with endogenous information. Rev Econ Stud 71: 165–191
Rothschild M, Stiglitz J (1970) Increasing Risk I: A definition. J Econ Theory 2: 225–243
Taylor C, Yildirim H (2005) Public information and electoral bias. Duke University, Department of Economics, Working Papers: 05–11
Wit J (1998) Rational choice and the Condorcet Jury Theorem. Games Econ Behav 22(2): 364–376
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This is a substantially revised version of Department of Economics University of Warwick Working Paper 670, “Information Aggregation, Costly Voting and Common Values”, January 2003. We would like to thank B. Dutta, M. Morelli, C. Perrroni, V. Bhaskar and seminar participants at Warwick, Nottingham and the ESRC Workshop in Game Theory for their comments. We would also like to thank the editor and an anonymous referee for their comments.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghosal, S., Lockwood, B. Costly voting when both information and preferences differ: is turnout too high or too low?. Soc Choice Welf 33, 25–50 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-008-0344-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-008-0344-6