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Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections With Private Information

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  • Timothy Feddersen
  • Wolfgang Pesendorfer

Abstract

The authors analyze two-candidate elections in which voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters. They assume each voter has noisy private information about the state variable. The authors show that, in equilibrium, almost all voters ignore their private signal when voting. Nevertheless, elections fully aggregate information in the sense that the chosen candidate would not change if all private information were common knowledge.
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Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Feddersen & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1997. "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections With Private Information," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1560, David K. Levine.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:1560
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1985. "Uncertainty Resolution, Private Information Aggregation and the Cournot Competitive Limit," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 69-83.
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    7. Milgrom, Paul R, 1979. "A Convergence Theorem for Competitive Bidding with Differential Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 679-688, May.
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    9. Robert Wilson, 1977. "A Bidding Model of Perfect Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 511-518.
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