Deliberation, Leadership and Information Aggregation

  1. Rivas Compains, Francisco Javier
  2. Rodríguez Álvarez, Carmelo
Aldizkaria:
Documentos de Trabajo (ICAE)

ISSN: 2341-2356

Argitalpen urtea: 2014

Zenbakia: 4

Orrialdeak: 1-34

Mota: Laneko dokumentua

DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDocta Complutense editor

Beste argitalpen batzuk: Documentos de Trabajo (ICAE)

Laburpena

We analyse committees of voters who take a decision between two options as a two- stage process. In a discussion stage, voters share non-verifiable information about a private signal concerning what is the best option. In a voting stage, votes are cast and one of the options is implemented. We introduce the possibility of leadership whereby a certain voter, the leader, is more influential than the rest at the discussion stage even though she is not better informed. We study information transmission and characterize the effects of the leader on the deliberation process. We find, amongst others, that both the quality of the decision taken by the committee and how truthful voters are at the discussion stage depends non-monotonically on how influential the leader is. In particular, although a leader whose influence is weak does not disrupt the decision process of the committee in any way, a very influential leader is less disruptive than a moderately influential leader.

Erreferentzia bibliografikoak

  • Austen-Smith, D. and J. S. Banks (1996): “Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem”, American Political Science Review 90, 34-45.
  • Austen-Smith, D. and T. Feddersen (2006): “Deliberation, Preference Uncertainty, and Voting Rules”, American Political Science Review 100 (2), 209-217.
  • Condorcet, M. de (1785): “Essai sur la application del analyse `a la probabilit´e des d´ecisions rendues `a la probabilit´e des voix”, De l’Impremiere Royale, Paris.
  • Coughlan, P. (2000): “In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts; Mistrials, Communication, and Strategic Voting”, American Political Science Review 69, 9-15.
  • Dewan, T. and D. Myatt (2007): “Leading the party: Coordination, direction, and communication”, American Political Science Review 101(4), 827-845.
  • Dewan, T. and D. Myatt (2008): “The qualities of leadership: Direction, communication, and obfuscation”, American Political Science Review 102(3), 351-368.
  • Dewan, T. and D. Myatt (2012): “On the rhetorical strategies of leaders: Speaking clearly, standing back, and stepping down”, Journal of Theoretical Politics 24(4), 431-460.
  • Feddersen, T. and W. Pesendorfer (1996): “The Swing Voter’s Curse”, American Economic Review 86 (3), 408-424.
  • Feddersen, T. and W. Pesendorfer (1998): “Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts”, American Political Science Review 92 (1), 23-35.
  • Feddersen, T. and W. Pesendorfer (1997): “Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information”, Econometrica 65 (5), 1029-1058.
  • Gerardi, D. and L. Yariv (2007): “Deliberative Voting”, Journal of Economic Theory 134, 317-338. Gerardi, D. and L. Yariv (2008): “Information Acquisition in Committees”, Games and Economic Behavior 62, 436-459.
  • Gerzskov, A. and B. Szentes (2009): “Optimal Voting Schemes with Costly Information Acquisition”, Journal of Economic Theory 134, 36-68.
  • Glazer, J. and A. Rubinstein (2001): “Debates and Decisions: On a Rationale of Argumentation Rules”, Games and Economic Behavior 36, 158-173.
  • Jackson, M. O. and X. Tan (2013): “Deliberation, Disclosure of Information, and Voting”, Journal of Economic Theory 148, 2-30.
  • Martinelli, C. (2006): “Would Rational Voters Acquire Costly Information?”, Journal of Economic Theory 129, 225-251.
  • McLennan, A. (1998): “Information, Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem”, American Political Science Review 92, 413-418.
  • Spiegler, R. (2006): “Argumentation in Multi-issue Debates”, Social Choice and Welfare 26, 385-402.
Datuen iturria: Dialnet