411 research outputs found
Let the Experts Decide? Asymmetric Information, Abstention, and Coordination in Standing Committees
We examine abstention when voters in standing committees are asymmetrically informed and there are multiple pure strategy equilibria-swing voter's curse (SVC) equilibria where voters with low quality information abstain and equilibria when all participants vote their information. When the asymmetry in information quality is large, we find that voting groups largely coordinate on the SVC equilibrium which is also Pareto Optimal. However, we find that when the asymmetry in information quality is not large and the Pareto Optimal equilibrium is for all to participate, significant numbers of voters with low quality information abstain. Furthermore, we find that information asymmetry induces voters with low quality information to coordinate on a non-equilibrium outcome. This suggests that coordination on "letting the experts" decide is a likely voting norm that sometimes validates SVC equilibrium predictions but other times does not.
Against all odds: Tentative steps toward efficient information sharing in groups
When groups face difficult problems, the voices of experts may be lost in the noise of others’ contributions. We present results from a “naturally noisy” setting, a large first-year undergraduate class, in which the expert’s voice was “lost” to such a degree that bringing forward even more inferior information was optimal. A single individual had little chance to improve the outcome and coordinating with the whole group was impossible. In this setting, we examined the change in behavior before and after people could talk to their neighbors. We found that the number of people who reduced noise by holding back their information strongly and significantly increased
Essays on strategic voting and political influence
Chapter 1 : I attempt a detailed literature review on the passage from the probabilistic
versions of the Condorcet Jury Theorem to models augmented by the concept
of strategic agents, including both theoretical and relevant empirical work.
In the first part, I explore the most influential relevant game theoretic models
and their main predictions. In the second part, I review what voting experiments
have to say about these predictions, with a brief mention of the experiments' key
methodological aspects. In the final part, I provide with an attempt to map the
recent strategic voting literature in terms of structure and scope. I close with
a philosophical question on the exogeneity of a "correct" choice of a voting outcome,
which is inherent in the current strategic voting literature.
Chapter 2 : I develop a two stage game with individually costly political action
and costless voting on a binary agenda where, in equilibrium, agents rationally
cast honest votes in the voting stage. I show that a positive but sufficiently low
individual cost of political action can lead to a loss in aggregate welfare for any
electorate size. When the individual cost of political action is lower than the
signalling gain, agents will engage in informative political action. In the voting
stage, since everyone's signal is revealed, agents will unanimously vote for the
same policy. Therefore, the result of the ballot will be exactly the same as the
one without prior communication, but with the additional aggregate cost of political
action. However, when agents have heterogeneous prior beliefs, society is
large and the state of the world is sufficiently uncertain, a moderate individual
cost of political action can induce informative collective action of only a subset
of the members of society, which increases ex ante aggregate welfare relative to
no political action. The size of the subset of agents engaging in collective action
depends on the dispersion of prior opinions.
Chapter 3 : This chapter shows theoretically that hearing expert opinions can
be a double-edged sword for decision making committees. We study a majoritarian
voting game of common interest where committee members receive not
only private information, but also expert information that is more accurate than
private information and observed by all members. We identify three types of
equilibria of interest, namely i) the symmetric mixed strategy equilibrium where
each member randomizes between following the private and public signals should
they disagree; ii) the asymmetric pure strategy equilibrium where a certain number
of members always follow the public signal while the others always follow the
private signal; and iii) a class of equilibria where a supermajority and hence the
committee decision always follow the expert signal. We find that in the first two
equilibria, the expert signal is collectively taken into account in such a way that
it enhances the efficiency (accuracy) of the committee decision, and a fortiori the
CJT holds. However, in the third type of equilibria, private information is not
reflected in the committee decision and the efficiency of committee decision is
identical to that of public information, which may well be lower than the efficiency the committee could achieve without expert information. In other words, the introduction of expert information might reduce efficiency in equilibrium.
Chapter 4 : In this chapter we present experimental results on the theory of
the previous chapter. In the laboratory, too many subjects voted according to
expert information compared to the predictions from the efficient equilibria. The
majority decisions followed the expert signal most of the time, which is consistent
with the class of obedient equilibria mentioned in the previous chapter. Another
interesting finding is the marked heterogeneity in voting behaviour. We argue
that the voters' behaviour in our data can be best described as that in an obedient
equilibrium where a supermajority (and hence the decision) always follow
the expert signal so that no voter is pivotal. A large efficiency loss manifests
due to the presence of expert information when the committee size was large.
We suggest that it may be desirable for expert information to be revealed only
to a subset of committee members. Finally, in the Appendix we describe a new
alternative method for producing the signal matrix of the game.
Chapter 5 : There is a significant gap between the theoretical predictions and
the empirical evidence about the efficiency of policies in reducing crime rates.
This chapter argues that one important reason for this is that the current literature
of economics of crime overlooks an important hysteresis effect in criminal
behaviour. One important consequence of hysteresis is that the effect on an outcome
variable from positive exogenous variations in the determining variables has
a different magnitude from negative variations. We present a simple model that
characterises hysteresis in both the micro and macro levels. When the probability
of punishment decreases, some law abiding agents will find it more beneficial to
enter a criminal career. If the probability of punishment returns to its original
level, a subset of these agents will continue with their career in crime. We show
that, when crime choice exhibits weak hysteresis at the individual level, crime rate
in a society consisted from a continuum of agents that follows any non-uniform
distribution will exhibit strong hysteresis. Only when punishment is extremely
severe the effect of hysteresis ceases to exist. The theoretical predictions corroborate
the argument that policy makers should be more inclined to set pre-emptive
policies rather than mitigating measures
Common value elections with private information and informative priors: Theory and experiments
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. We study efficiency and information aggregation in common value elections with contin-uous private signals and informative priors. We show that small elections are not generally efficient and that there are equilibria where some voters vote against their private signal even if it provides useful information and abstention is allowed. This is not the case in large elections, where the fraction of voters who vote against their private signal tends to zero. In an experiment, we then study how informativeness of priors and private signals impact efficiency and information aggregation in small elections. We find that there is a substantial amount of voting against the private signal. Moreover, while most experimental elections are efficient, we find that it is not generally the case that better private information leads to better decisions
Experimental evidence that quorum rules discourage turnout and promote election boycotts
NIPE WP-14/2013In most instances of collective decision-making, it cannot be expected that all persons who are entitled to vote will end up doing so. This has led institutional designers, out of concerns with the “legitimacy” of decisions, to introduce quorum requirements. A prominent example of this can be found in the context of direct democracy mechanisms, such as referenda and initiatives. We discuss the results of an experiment about the consequences of such quora. We show that quora lead to overall decreases in participation rates, dramatically increasing the likelihood of full-fledged electoral boycotts on the part of status quo supporters.COMPETE;QREN;FEDER; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT
Expert information and majority decisions
This paper shows theoretically and experimentally that hearing expert opinions can be a double-edged sword for decision making committees. We study a majoritarian voting game of common interest where committee members receive not only private information, but also expert information that is more accurate than private information and observed by all members. In theory, there are Bayesian Nash equilibria where the committee members ’ voting strategy incorporates both types of information and access to expert information enhances the efficiency of the majority decision. However, there is a class of potentially inefficient equilibria where a supermajority always follow expert information and the majority decision does not aggregate private information. In the laboratory, too many subjects voted according to expert information compared to the predictions from the efficient equilibria. We found a large efficiency loss due to the presence of expert information when the committee size was large. We suggest that it may be desirable for expert information to be revealed only to a subset of committee members
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