Good policy choices even when voters entertain biased beliefs: a model with endogenous valence

Arbeitspapier

In The Myth of the Rational Voter Brian Caplan shows that voters entertain systematically biased beliefs on a number of essential issues of economic policy and concludes that this leads democracies to choose bad policies. We introduce the psychological concept of mental models to address voter' naive reasoning about the economy and thereby explain the persistent bias in beliefs. Next, we develop a game-theoretical model to show that this does not automatically lead to bad policy choices. The model formalizes Caplan's thought experiment No. 4 by introducing endogenous party valence to a model of probabilistic voting. In so doing, we provide an investigation of when good policies are chosen in democracy. Based on our findings, we discuss the impact of different political institutions on economic outcomes.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics ; No. 2008,24

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡ ; Capitalist Systems: Political Economy
• Thema: Voting behaviour ; dynamic party competition ; valence ; VP-functions ; biased voting

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Bischoff, Ivo ; Siemers, Lars-H. R.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Philipps-University Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics
• (wo): Marburg
• (wann): 2008

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/30075
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ