When consensus hurts: experts' advice and electoral support

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In this paper, I analyze how voters optimally aggregate and use the information provided by informed experts. I find that, when citizens do not observe the vested interest of each expert and their interests are sufficiently correlated, the relationship between the share of experts endorsing an alternative and the share of citizens voting for it is non-monotonic. The explanation is that consensus among experts can be reached either because all experts share the same information or because they ignore the information they have and provide their advice according to their interests. The non-monotonic result holds even if experts are strategic.

Keywords: Voting; Experts; Consensus. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07-01
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