Group Polarization in a Model of Information Aggregation

Nicolas Roux and Joel Sobel

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2015, vol. 7, issue 4, 202-32

Abstract: Experiments identify the empirical regularity that groups tend to make decisions that are more extreme, but in the same direction as the tendency of individual members of the group. We present a model of information aggregation consistent with these findings. We assume individuals and groups are rational decision makers facing monotone statistical decision problems where groups and individuals have common preferences, but groups have superior information. We provide conditions under which the distribution of the optimal actions of the group is more variable than the distribution of actions taken by individuals. (JEL D71, D83)

JEL-codes: D71 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.20140252
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.20140252 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/ds/0704/2014-0252_ds.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Group Polarization in a Model of Information Aggregation (2015)
Working Paper: Group Polarization in a Model of Information Aggregation (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:7:y:2015:i:4:p:202-32

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().