scholarly journals The Condorcet Jury Theorem with Information Acquisition

Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Jun Chen

We analyze a committee decision in which individuals with common preferences are uncertain which of two alternatives is better for them. Members can acquire costly information. Private signals and information choice are both continuous. As is consistent with Down’s rational ignorance hypothesis, each member acquires less information in a larger committee and tends to acquire zero information when the committee size goes to infinity. However, with more members, a larger committee can gather more aggregate information in equilibrium. The aggregate information is infinite with the size going to infinity if and only if marginal cost at “zero information acquisition” is zero. When the marginal cost at “zero information acquisition” is positive, the probability of making an appropriate decision tends to be less than one.

Games ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Johanna M. M. Goertz

Herein, we prove a Condorcet jury theorem (CJT) for large elections with multiple alternatives. Voters have common interests that depend on an unknown state of nature. Each voter receives an imprecise private signal about the state of nature and then submits one vote (simple plurality rule). We also assume that this is a Poisson voting game with population uncertainty. The question is whether the simple plurality rule aggregates information efficiently so that the correct alternative is elected with probability tending to one when the number of voters tends to infinity. The previous literature shows that the CJT holds for large elections with two alternatives, but there is also an example of a large election with three alternatives that has an inefficient equilibrium. We show that there always exists an efficient equilibrium, independent of the number of alternatives. Under certain circumstances (informative types), it is unique in elections with two alternatives. The existence of inefficient equilibria in elections with more than two alternatives is generic.


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
MINORU KITAHARA ◽  
YOHEI SEKIGUCHI

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 1043-1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Gabaix ◽  
David Laibson ◽  
Guillermo Moloche ◽  
Stephen Weinberg

The directed cognition model assumes that agents use partially myopic option-value calculations to select their next cognitive operation. The current paper tests this model by studying information acquisition in two experiments. In the first experiment, information acquisition has an explicit financial cost. In the second experiment, information acquisition is costly because time is scarce. The directed cognition model successfully predicts aggregate information acquisition patterns in these experiments. When the directed cognition model and the fully rational model make demonstrably different predictions, the directed cognition model better matches the laboratory evidence.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Denter ◽  
Martin Dumav ◽  
Boris Ginzburg

Abstract A biased newspaper aims to persuade voters to vote for the government. Voters are uncertain about the government’s competence. Each voter receives the newspaper’s report as well as independent private signals about the competence. Voters then exchange messages containing this information on social media and form posterior beliefs, neglecting correlation among messages. We show that greater social connectivity increases the probability of an efficient voting outcome if the prior favours the government; otherwise, efficiency decreases. The probability of an efficient outcome remains strictly below one even when connectivity becomes large, implying a failure of the Condorcet jury theorem.


1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Austen-Smith ◽  
Jeffrey S. Banks

The Condorcet Jury Theorem states that majorities are more likely than any single individual to select the “better” of two alternatives when there exists uncertainty about which of the two alternatives is in fact preferred. Most extant proofs of this theorem implicitly make the behavioral assumption that individuals vote “sincerely” in the collective decision making, a seemingly innocuous assumption, given that individuals are taken to possess a common preference for selecting the better alternative. However, in the model analyzed here we find that sincere behavior by all individuals is not rational even when individuals have such a common preference. In particular, sincere voting does not constitute a Nash equilibrium. A satisfactory rational choice foundation for the claim that majorities invariably “do better” than individuals, therefore, has yet to be derived.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-423
Author(s):  
Qi Fu ◽  
Yongquan Li ◽  
Kaijie Zhu

Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore

This chapter argues that majority rule is a useful complement of inclusive deliberation, not just because majority rule is more efficient timewise, but because it has distinct epistemic properties of its own. It also stresses that majority rule is best designed for collective prediction—that is, the identification of the best options out of those selected during the deliberative phase. Of all the competing alternatives (rule of one or rule of the few), majority rule maximizes the chances of predicting the right answer among the proposed options. The chapter considers several accounts of the epistemic properties of majority rule, including the Condorcet Jury Theorem, the Miracle of Aggregation, and a more fine-grained model based on cognitive diversity.


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