Public Disagreement
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 4,
no. 3, August 2012
(pp. 57-95)
Abstract
We develop a model of deliberation under heterogeneous beliefs and incomplete information, and use it to explore questions concerning the aggregation of distributed information and the consequences of social integration. We show that when priors are correlated, all private information is eventually aggregated and public beliefs are identical to those arising under observable priors. When priors are independently distributed, however, some private information is never revealed, and communication breaks down entirely in large groups. Interpreting integration in terms of the observability of priors, we show how increases in social integration lead to less divergent public beliefs on average. (JEL D82, D83, Z13)Citation
Sethi, Rajiv, and Muhamet Yildiz. 2012. "Public Disagreement." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 4 (3): 57-95. DOI: 10.1257/mic.4.3.57JEL Classification
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification
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