Impressionable Voters

Costel Andonie and Daniel Diermeier

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2019, vol. 11, issue 1, 79-104

Abstract: We propose a model of impressionable voters. Impressionable voters vote based on impressions rather than maximizing expected utility. We apply our model to elections with multiple candidates and solve for the stationary distributions of the implied stochastic process. In elections with two candidates, we find that impressionable voters select the candidate that maximizes utilitarian welfare. In multi-candidate elections, Condorcet winners are elected provided that a majority of voters is able to sufficiently distinguish competing candidates. In such cases, models with impressionable voters may have better normative properties than models with rational voters.

JEL-codes: D71 D72 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.20160202
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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