Large elections with multiple alternatives: a Condorcet Jury Theorem and inefficient equilibria

Johanna Goertz () and Francois Maniquet

No 2013023, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: We investigate whether the plurality rule aggregates information efficiently in large elections with multiple alternatives, in which voters have common interests. Voters’ preferences depend on an unknown state of nature, and they receive imprecise private signals about the state of nature prior to the election. Similar to two-alternative elections (e.g., Myer- son (1998)), there always exists an informationally efficient equilibrium in which the correct alternative is elected. However, we identify new types of coordination failures in elections with more than two alternatives that lead to new types of inefficient equilibria. These can have interesting new properties: Voters may vote informatively, but the correct alternative is not elected.

Keywords: efficient information aggregation; simple plurality rule; Poisson games; Condorcet Jury Theorem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D71 D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-05-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2013023

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