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SEARCH BEHAVIOR OF ASYMMETRICALLY INFORMED VOTERS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY *
Author(s) -
Dasgupta Sugato,
Williams Kenneth C.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1995.tb00102.x
Subject(s) - ballot , task (project management) , voter model , computer science , function (biology) , voting , quality (philosophy) , space (punctuation) , information retrieval , mathematics , economics , statistics , political science , politics , philosophy , management , epistemology , evolutionary biology , law , biology , operating system
This paper experimentally investigates individual level search within a spatial election model. In our model the voter is required to cast a ballot for one of two candidates. However, the voter's task is made non‐trivial since, even though the location of one candidate is known, the location of a second candidate is unknown. To reduce uncertainty regarding the unknown candidate's location, the voter may undertake an information search. We find that search in this environment is a function of the cost of search, the quality of information, and the voter's location on the issue space.