Informational Origins of Political Bias Towards Critical Groups of Voters

Roger Myerson

No 1242, Discussion Papers from Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science

Abstract: We show how nonsymmetric politicization can rise in a democracy where voters are distributed across several ex-ante symmetric sectors. The voters are uncertain about the administrative ability of an elected official. they observe the quality of her performance, which depends on her ability and her effort. the official can allocate her efforts symmetrically or nonsymmetrically across sectors. We show the existence of a nonsymmetric equilibrium, in which the official allocates mroe effort to administering one critical sector, becqause voters in other sectors rationally respond less to what they observe about the quality of to her administration.

Date: 1998-09
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Journal Article: Informational origins of political bias towards critical groups of voters (1999)
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