American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Voter Information and Distributive Politics
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 293–312)
Abstract
Does more information benefit voters? I examine this question in a novel setting of distributive politics and electoral accountability. Homogeneously informed electorates can benefit from less information through improvements in the control or screening of politicians. For heterogeneously informed electorates, I show that the distribution of resources and voter welfare is affected by the nature of informational heterogeneity and by voters' ability to communicate with each other, making less-informed voters better off than their more-informed counterparts in some cases.Citation
Blumenthal, Benjamin. 2026. "Voter Information and Distributive Politics." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 18 (2): 293–312. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20240340Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- H50 National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General