Information Aggregation in Large Protests: A Continuum Model

Mehmet Ekmekci () and Stephan Lauermann ()

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: We study information transmission through informal elections. Our leading example is that of protests in which there may be positive costs or benefits of participation. The aggregate turnout provides information to a policy maker. However, the presence of activists adds noise to the turnout. The interplay between noise and participation costs leads to strategic substitution and complementarity effects in citizens' participation choices, and we characterize the implications for the informativeness of protests. In particular, we show that rather than being a friction, costs may facilitate information transmission by lending credibility to protest participation.

Keywords: Voting; Information Aggregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47
Date: 2019-04, Revised 2024-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp080 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2019_080v2

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany Kaiserstr. 1, 53113 Bonn , Germany.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CRC Office ().