Who abstains in equilibrium?

Oliveros, Santiago (2008): Who abstains in equilibrium?

Abstract

We study abstention when each voter selects the quality of information. We introduce conflict among committee members using two dimensions of heterogeneity: ideology (relative ratio of utilities) and concern or intensity (absolute level of utility). Our main result is that information and abstention need not be negatively correlated and, for some particular voters, it is actually positively correlated. In equilibrium voters collect information of different qualities and there are informed voters that abstain. There are no other models with heterogeneously informed voters when information is endogenous. The existence of an equilibrium in which voters collect information of different quality does not follow from a straightforward application of fixed point arguments. Instead of looking for a fixed point in the (infinite) space of best response functions, we construct a transformation with domain in a suitable finite-dimensional space reducing the problem to a traditional application of Brouwer's fixed point theorem.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Abstention, Information Acquisition, Heterogeneity
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D71 - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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