Correlation neglect, voting behaviour and information aggregation

Levy, Gilat ORCID: 0009-0006-7641-1668 and Razin, Ronny ORCID: 0009-0009-5169-0180 (2015) Correlation neglect, voting behaviour and information aggregation. American Economic Review, 105 (4). pp. 1634-1645. ISSN 0002-8282

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Abstract

In this paper we analyse elections when voters underestimate the correlation between their information sources ("correlation neglect"). We find that this cognitive bias can improve political outcomes. We show that the extreme beliefs which result from correlation neglect induce some voters to base their vote on information rather than on political preferences. We characterise conditions on the distribution of preferences under which this induces higher vote shares for the optimal policies and better information aggregation.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/index.php
Additional Information:	© 2014 AEA
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2014 11:45
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 05:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/60517

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