The swing voter's curse in social networks

Berno Buechel and Lydia Mechtenberg
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Berno Büchel

No 485, FSES Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland

Abstract: We study private communication in social networks prior to a majority vote on two alternative policies. Some (or all) agents receive a private imperfect signal about which policy is correct. They can, but need not, recommend a policy to their neighbors in the social network prior to the vote. We show theoretically and empirically that communication can undermine efficiency of the vote and hence reduce welfare in a common interest setting. Both efficiency and existence of fully informative equilibria in which vote recommendations are always truthfully given and followed hinge on the structure of the communication network. If some voters have distinctly larger audiences than others, their neighbors should not follow their vote recommendation; however, they may do so in equilibrium. We test the model in a lab experiment and find strong support for the comparative-statics and, more generally, for the importance of the network structure for voting behavior.

Keywords: Strategic Voting; Social Networks; Swing Voter’s Curse; Information Aggregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D72 D83 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 97 pages
Date: 2017-07-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-mic, nep-net, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The swing voter's curse in social networks (2019)
Working Paper: The Swing Voter's Curse in Social Networks (2017)
Working Paper: The Swing Voter's Curse in Social Networks (2017)
Working Paper: The Swing Voter's Curse in Social Networks (2017)
Working Paper: The Swing Voter's Curse in Social Networks (2015)
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