IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v135y2022icp86-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wisdom of the crowd? Information aggregation in representative democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Prato, Carlo
  • Wolton, Stephane

Abstract

The Condorcet Jury Theorem and subsequent literature establish the feasibility of information aggregation in a common-value environment with exogenous policy options: a large electorate of imperfectly informed voters almost always selects the correct policy option. Rather than directly voting for policies, citizens in modern representative democracies elect candidates who make strategic policy commitments. We show that intermediation by candidates sometimes improves policy choices and sometimes impedes information aggregation. Somewhat paradoxically, the possibility of information aggregation by voters encourages strategic conformism by candidates. Correlated information or partisan biases among voters can mitigate the political failure we uncover. We also discuss possible institutional solutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2022. "Wisdom of the crowd? Information aggregation in representative democracy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 86-95.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:135:y:2022:i:c:p:86-95
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.05.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825622000872
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2022.05.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fox, Justin & Stephenson, Matthew C., 2011. "Judicial Review as a Response to Political Posturing," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(2), pages 397-414, May.
    2. Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1997. "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1029-1058, September.
    3. Landa, Dimitri & Pevnick, Ryan, 2020. "Representative Democracy as Defensible Epistocracy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Heidhues, Paul & Lagerlof, Johan, 2003. "Hiding information in electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 48-74, January.
    5. Castanheira, Micael, 2003. "Victory margins and the paradox of voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 817-841, November.
    6. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    7. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Frédéric Malherbe, 2018. "Get Rid of Unanimity Rule: The Superiority of Majority Rules with Veto Power," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 107-149.
    8. Mandler, Michael, 2012. "The fragility of information aggregation in large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 257-268.
    9. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    10. Thomas Piketty, 2000. "Voting as Communicating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 169-191.
    11. Meirowitz, Adam & Shotts, Kenneth W., 2009. "Pivots versus signals in elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 744-771, March.
    12. Gratton, Gabriele, 2014. "Pandering and electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 163-179.
    13. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2012. "One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 43-87, January.
    14. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    15. Feddersen, Timothy J & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1996. "The Swing Voter's Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 408-424, June.
    16. Myerson, Roger B., 1998. "Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 111-131, October.
    17. Jean-François Laslier & Karine Straeten, 2004. "Electoral competition under imperfect information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(2), pages 419-446, August.
    18. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    19. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2013. "A Political Theory of Populism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 771-805.
    20. 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.
    21. McMurray, Joseph, 2017. "Voting as communicating: Mandates, multiple candidates, and the signaling voter's curse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 199-223.
    22. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/162238 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Philip Bond & Hülya Eraslan, 2010. "Strategic Voting over Strategic Proposals," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 459-490.
    24. Kim, Jaehoon & Fey, Mark, 2007. "The swing voter's curse with adversarial preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 236-252, July.
    25. Wit, Jorgen, 1998. "Rational Choice and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 364-376, February.
    26. Acharya, Avidit, 2016. "Information aggregation failure in a model of social mobility," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 257-272.
    27. Martinelli, Cesar, 2001. "Elections with Privately Informed Parties and Voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(1-2), pages 147-167, July.
    28. Ronny Razin, 2003. "Signaling and Election Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1083-1119, July.
    29. Sourav Bhattacharya, 2013. "Preference Monotonicity and Information Aggregation in Elections," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1229-1247, May.
    30. Gul, Faruk & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2009. "Partisan politics and election failure with ignorant voters," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 146-174, January.
    31. Marco Battaglini, 2017. "Public Protests and Policy Making," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 485-549.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berliner, Daniel, 2023. "Information Processing in Participatory Governance," SocArXiv snerh, Center for Open Science.

    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. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2017. "Wisdom of the Crowd? Information Aggregation and Electoral Incentives," MPRA Paper 82753, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Gratton, Gabriele, 2014. "Pandering and electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 163-179.
    3. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    4. Tajika, Tomoya, 2022. "Voting on tricky questions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 380-389.
    5. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2012. "One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 43-87, January.
    6. Tomoya Tajika, 2021. "Polarization and inefficient information aggregation under strategic voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(1), pages 67-100, January.
    7. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Antonin Macé & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2021. "Voting Rights, Agenda Control and Information Aggregation," NBER Working Papers 29005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Svetlana Kosterina, 2023. "Information structures and information aggregation in threshold equilibria in elections," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(2), pages 493-522, February.
    9. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Lauermann, Stephan, 2022. "Information aggregation in Poisson-elections," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(1), January.
    10. Meirowitz, Adam & Pi, Shaoting, 2022. "Voting and trading: The shareholder’s dilemma," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1073-1096.
    11. Goertz, Johanna M.M. & Maniquet, François, 2014. "Condorcet Jury Theorem: An example in which informative voting is rational but leads to inefficient information aggregation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 25-28.
    12. GOERTZ, Johanna & MANIQUET, François, 2013. "Large elections with multiple alternatives: a Condorcet Jury Theorem and inefficient equilibria," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2013023, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    13. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    14. Tajika, Tomoya, 2018. "Collective Mistakes: Intuition Aggregation for a Trick Question under Strategic Voting," Discussion Paper Series 674, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    15. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2017. "Multicandidate elections: Aggregate uncertainty in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 132-150.
    16. Johanna M. M. Goertz, 2019. "A Condorcet Jury Theorem for Large Poisson Elections with Multiple Alternatives," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. McMurray, Joseph, 2022. "Polarization and pandering in common-interest elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 150-161.
    18. Mandler, Michael, 2012. "The fragility of information aggregation in large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 257-268.
    19. Paulo Barelli & Sourav Bhattacharya & Lucas Siga, 2022. "Full Information Equivalence in Large Elections," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2161-2185, September.
    20. ,, 2016. "Condorcet meets Ellsberg," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information aggregation; Elections; Representative democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:eee:gamebe:v:135:y:2022:i:c:p:86-95. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.