The Dark Side of the Vote: Biased Voters, Social Information, and Information Aggregation Through Majority Voting

Jean-Robert Tyran, Rebecca Morton and Marco Piovesan

No 9098, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a ?dark side?, i.e. result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. We develop a model to predict how two types of social information shape efficiency in the presence of biased voters and we test these predictions using a novel experimental design. In line with predictions, we find that information on the popularity of policy choices is beneficial when a minority of voters is biased, but harmful when a majority is biased. In theory, information on the success of policy choices elsewhere de-biases voters and alleviates the inefficiency. In the experiment, providing social information on success is ineffective. While voters with higher cognitive abilities are more likely to be de-biased by such information, most voters do not seem to interpret such information rationally.

Keywords: Biased voters; Information aggregation; Majority voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D02 D03 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta, nep-exp, nep-for and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The dark side of the vote: Biased voters, social information, and information aggregation through majority voting (2019)
Working Paper: The dark side of the vote: Biased voters, social information, and information aggregation through majority voting (2013)
Working Paper: The Dark Side of the Vote: Biased Voters, Social Information, and Information Aggregation Through Majority Voting (2012)
Working Paper: The Dark Side of the Vote - Biased Voters, Social Information, and Information Aggregation Through Majority Voting (2012)
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