What Do You Want Me To Say?

Chaim Fershtman and Uzi Segal

No 1111, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: We analyze societies where people express their opinions with respect to a single issue. These opinions also affect social connections. People enjoy being connected to others, but only with those whose opinions they deem acceptable. In such environments people behave strategically to optimize their social connections and therefore their expressed opinions do not necessarily represent their true ones. Dis- tributions of expressed opinions thus depend on the social structure. Changes in the views of some people or changes in the relative size of different groups may trigger changes in the map of social connections and in the distribution of expressed opinions.

Keywords: Strategic opinion expression; social connections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D85 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-05
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