Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T03:23:03.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conformity Voting and the Value of Public Information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

Haritz Garro
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I study how the quality of information affects politician selection in a two-candidate model where voters want to vote for the best candidate but also for the winner. Voters receive private and public signals about candidates’ relative valence. Public information has a stronger effect on equilibrium outcomes because voters use it to infer other voters’ beliefs. Contrary to what might be expected, more precise public information does not always benefit the better candidate’s electoral prospects: when voters’ private information is precise enough, improving public information hurts the better candidate’s electoral prospects. The model provides a rationale for the prevalence of large swings in voter sentiment in close elections, and for front-runner candidates’ tendency to avoid face-to-face television debates with the underdog.

Type
Research Note
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 913 - 920
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2018 

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.)

Footnotes

*

Haritz Garro is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-0814 ([email protected]). This paper is a revised version of my Master’s Thesis at CEMFI. The author is grateful to Guillermo Caruana for his invaluable support. The author thanks Massimo Morelli, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at CEMFI, Northwestern, and UPV/EHU for helpful comments and suggestions. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.13

References

Ali, S. Nageeb, and Kartik, Navin. 2012. ‘Herding with Collective Preferences’. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 51(3):601–626.Google Scholar
Andonie, Costel, and Kuzmics, Christoph. 2012. ‘Pre-Election Polls as Strategic Coordination Devices’. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 84:681–700.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David, and Banks, Jeffrey S.. 1996. ‘Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem’. American Political Science Review 90(1):34–45.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2010. ‘Regime Change and Revolutionary Entrepreneurs’. American Political Science Review 104(3):446–466.Google Scholar
Callander, Steven. 2007. ‘Bandwagon and Momentum in Sequential Voting’. Review of Economic Studies 74:653–684.Google Scholar
Callander, Steven. 2008. ‘Majority Rule When Voters Like to Win’. Games and Economic Behavior 64:393–420.Google Scholar
Goeree, Jacob K., and Grosser, Jens. 2007. ‘Welfare Reducing Polls’. Economic Theory 31:51–68.Google Scholar
Hellwig, Christian. 2002. ‘Public Information, Private Information and the Multiplicity of Equilibria’. Journal of Economic Theory 107(2):191–222.Google Scholar
Hinich, Melvin J. 1981. ‘Voting as an Act of Contribution’. Public Choice 36:135–140.Google Scholar
Kawamura, Kohei, and Vlaseros, Vasileios. 2017. ‘Expert Information and Majority Decisions’. Journal of Public Economics 147:77–88.Google Scholar
Knight, Brian, and Schiff, Nathan. 2010. ‘Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries’. Journal of Political Economy 118(6):1110–1150.Google Scholar
Liu, Shuo. 2017. ‘Voting with Public Information’, Unpublished Manuscript. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2600507, accessed 20 January 2018.Google Scholar
Morris, Stephen, and Shin, Hyun Song. 1998. ‘Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Attacks’. American Economic Review 88(3):587–597.Google Scholar
Morris, Stephen, and Shin, Hyun Song. 2001. ‘Global Games: Theory and Applications’, Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1275R. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=284813, accessed 20 January 2018.Google Scholar
Morris, Stephen, and Shin, Hyun Song. 2002. ‘Social Value of Public Information’. American Economic Review 92(5):1521–1534.Google Scholar
Morton, Rebecca, and Ou, Kai. 2015. ‘What Motivates Bandwagon Voting Behavior: Altruism or a Desire to Win?’. European Journal of Political Economy 40:224–241.Google Scholar
Myatt, David P. 2007. ‘On the Theory of Strategic Voting’. The Review of Economic Studies 74(1):255–281.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Bartels, Larry. 1984. ‘The Responsiveness of Approval Voting to Political Circumstances’. Political Science and Politics 17:571–577.Google Scholar
Panova Elena, A. 2015. ‘Passion for Voting’. Games and Economic Behavior 90:44–65.Google Scholar
Rothschild, David, and Malhotra, Neil. 2014. ‘Are Public Opinion Polls Self-Fulfilling Prophecies?’. Research and Politics 1(2):1–10.Google Scholar
Taylor, Curtis R., and Yildirim, Huseyin. 2010. ‘Public Information and Electoral Bias’. Games and Economic Behavior 68(1):353–375.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Garro supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Garro supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 355.2 KB