Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T22:33:14.153Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Consequences of the Condorcet Jury Theorem for Beneficial Information Aggregation by Rational Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Andrew McLennan*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota

Abstract

“Naïve” Condorcet Jury Theorems automatically have “sophisticated” versions as corollaries. A Condorcet Jury Theorem is a result, pertaining to an election in which the agents have common preferences but diverse information, asserting that the outcome is better, on average, than the one that would be chosen by any particular individual. Sometimes there is the additional assertion that, as the population grows, the probability of an incorrect decision goes to zero. As a consequence of simple properties of common interest games, whenever “sincere” voting leads to the conclusions of the theorem, there are Nash equilibria with these properties. In symmetric environments the equilibria may be taken to be symmetric.

Type
Research Notes
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Austen-Smith, David, and Banks, Jeffrey S.. 1996. “Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” American Political Science Review 90(March):3445.Google Scholar
Berg, Sven. 1993. “Condorcet's Jury Theorem, Dependency among Jurors.” Social Choice and Welfare 10(January):8796.Google Scholar
Condorcet, Marquis de. [1785] 1994. Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des decisions rendues à la pluralité des voix. Trans. McLean, Iain and Hewitt, Fiona. Paris.Google Scholar
Coughlan, Pete. 1997. “In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Communication, Mistrials, and Sincerity.” California Institute of Technology. Typescript.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Tim, and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1996a. “Abstention and Common Values.” Northwestern University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Tim, and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1996b. “The Swing Voter's Curse.” American Economic Review 86(June):408–24.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Tim, and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1996c. “Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information.” Northwestern University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Tim, and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1998. “Convicting the Innocent: the Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts.” American Political Science Review 92(March):2335.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard, and Feld, Scott. 1988. “Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective.” American Political Science Review 82(June):567–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohlberg, Elon, and Mertens, Jean-Francois. 1986. “On the Strategic Stability of Equilibria.” Econometrica 54(September):1003–38.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Harold. 1953. “Extensive Games and the Problem of Information.” In Contributions To the Theory of Games, vol. 2, ed. Kuhn, Harold and Tucker, Albert W.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ladha, Krishna. 1992. “The Condorcet Jury Theorem, Free Speech, and Correlated Votes.” American Journal of Political Science 36(August):617–34.Google Scholar
Ladha, Krishna. 1993. “Condorcet's Jury Theorem in the Light of de Finetti's Theorem: Majority Rule with Correlated Votes.” Social Choke and Welfare 10(January):6986.Google Scholar
Ladha, Krishna, Miller, Gary, and Oppenheimer, Joe. 1996. “Democracy: Turbo-charged or Shackled? Information Aggregation by Majority Rule.” Washington University, St. Louis. Typescript.Google Scholar
Miller, Nicholas. 1986. “Information, Electorates, and Democracy: Some Extensions and Interpretations of the Condorcet Jury Theory.” In Information Pooling and Group Decision Making, ed. Grofman, Bernard and Owen, Guillermo. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Myerson, Roger. 1994a. Population Uncertainty and Poisson Games. Discussion Paper 1102, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Managament Science, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Myerson, Roger. 1994b. Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem. Discussion Paper 1103, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Nash, John. 1951. “Non-cooperative games.” Annals of Mathematics 54(September):286–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radner, Roy. 1972. “Teams.” In Decision and Organization: A Volume in Honor of Jacob Marschak, ed. McGuire, C. B. and Radner, Roy. Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Selten, Reinhard. 1975. “Reexamination of the Perfectness Concept for Equilibrium Points in Extensive Games.” International Journal of Game Theory 4(1):2555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinkels, J.M. 1992. “Evolution and Strategic Stability: From Maynard Smith to Kohlberg and Mertens.” Journal of Economic Theory 57(August):333342.Google Scholar
van Damme, Eric. 1987. Stability and Perfection of Nash Equilibria. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wit, Jörgen. 1996. “Rational Choice and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” California Institute of Technology. Typescript.Google Scholar
Young, Peyton. 1988. “Condorcet's Theory of Voting.” American Political Science Review 82(December):1231–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.