Two-dimensional information choice in committees

Abstract:

This paper shows how the voting rule impacts about which characteristics of an alternative voters learn. Before casting their vote, voters can learn about an objective quality of the alternative or about their idiosyncratic type. How voters allocate their learning attention across characteristics is shown to be nonmonotonic in the voting rule: the further the quota is from a simple majority rule, the less voters learn about the objective quality and the more dispersed are their beliefs about the alternative. The voting rule can substantially affect the probability of implementing a low-quality alternative or rejecting a high-quality one.