SPECIALIZED LEARNING AND POLITICAL POLARIZATION

Sevgi Yuksel

International Economic Review, 2022, vol. 63, issue 1, 457-474

Abstract: When citizens are differentiated by how much they care about different issues informing policy, specialization allows them to concentrate their learning on the issues that are most important to them. However, as different citizens focus on different issues, the electorate becomes less responsive to party platforms. In particular, equilibrium policies polarize more in fractionalized societies in which there is greater disagreement about which issues matter the most. When the learning technology allows for more specialization, it effectively transforms the society into a more fractionalized one without changing the underlying preferences of the electorate, thereby increasing polarization.

Date: 2022
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