Condorcet Jury Theorem or Rational Ignorance

We analyze a symmetric model of an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is desirable for them. Each voter must incur some cost to acquire information about the alternatives. We show that by focusing on unbiased voting strategies, general symmetric signal structures...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of public economic theory Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 281 - 300
Main Authors KITAHARA, MINORU, SEKIGUCHI, YOHEI
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.04.2008
Association for Public Economic Theory
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
SeriesJournal of Public Economic Theory
Subjects
Economic theory
Hypotheses
Studies
Voter behavior
Voters
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Summary:We analyze a symmetric model of an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is desirable for them. Each voter must incur some cost to acquire information about the alternatives. We show that by focusing on unbiased voting strategies, general symmetric signal structures can be degenerated to a two‐signal model. In addition, we show that for any sequence of unbiased voting equilibria, if the second‐order derivative of the information cost function at no information is zero, then the probability of electing the desirable alternative converges to one, that is, the Condorcet Jury Theorem is valid. Otherwise, this probability converges to some value less than one; that is, the “rational ignorance” hypothesis is valid.
Bibliography:istex:682E748FFCC1A93E8B88A898A6DB9350009168B6
ArticleID:JPET362
ark:/67375/WNG-JX2MZB4J-R
yohei@e.u‐tokyo.ac.jp
We thank Tomohiko Kawamori, Akihiko Matsui, Ryo Ogawa, Dan Sasaki, and participants of the seminar at University of Tokyo. We also thank an associate editor and an anonymous referee for helpful advice. This work was supported by Grant‐in‐Aid for JSPS Fellows and MEXT Academic Frontier (2006‐2010).
Minoru Kitahara, Population Research Institute, Nihon University, 12‐5, Goban‐cho, Chiyoda‐ku, Tokyo 102‐8251, Japan
kitahara.minoru@nihon‐u.ac.jp
Yohei Sekiguchi, Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, 7‐3‐1 Hongo, Bunkyo‐ku, Tokyo 113‐0033, Japan
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ISSN:1097-3923
1467-9779
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9779.2008.00362.x