Rational ignorance is not bliss: When do lazy voters learn from decentralised policy experiments?

Arbeitspapier

A popular argument about economic policy under uncertainty states that decentralisation offers the possibility to learn from local or regional policy experiments. We argue that such learning processes are not trivial and do not occur frictionlessly: Voters have an inherent tendency to retain a given stock of policy-related knowledge which was costly to accumulate, so that yardstick competition is improbable to function well particularly for complex issues if representatives’ actions are tightly controlled by the electorate. Decentralisation provides improved learning processes compared to unitary systems, but the results we can expect are far from the ideal mechanisms of producing and utilising knowledge often described in the literature.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 441

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations: Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects ; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• Thema: Policy decentralisation ; fiscal competition ; model uncertainty ; collective learning ; Dezentralisierung ; Institutioneller Wettbewerb ; Neue politische Ökonomie ; Lernprozess ; Entscheidung unter Unsicherheit ; Theorie

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Schnellenbach, Jan
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
• (wo): Heidelberg
• (wann): 2007

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127260
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ