A generalisation of Feddersen and Pesendorfer (1998): Voting under ambiguity

Abstract

The well-known jury paradox - the more demanding the hurdle for conviction is, the more likely it is that a jury will convict an innocent defendant - heavily relies on Bayesian Updating. However, with ambiguous information (e.g., a forensic test with accuracy of 60%, or more), standard Bayesian updating becomes invalid, challenging the existence of this paradox. By developing novel theoretical model and by testing their predictions in laboratory setting, this thesis advances our understanding of how individuals process more realistically imprecise measures of information reliability and how this impacts on information aggregation for the group decision-making. Hence, our findings inform the institutional design of collective deliberation, for small to large group decision-making.