We study a model of collective decision making with endogenous information collection.Agents collect information about the consequences of a project, communicate, and then vote onthe project. We examine under what conditions communication may increase the probability thatgood decisions are made....

Democracies delegate substantial decision power to politicians. Using a model in which an incumbent can design, examine and implement public policies, we show that examination takes place in spite of, rather than thanks to, elections. Elections are needed as a carrot and a stick to motivate...

We identify the conditions under which voters can induce political parties to collect information and to select policies which are optimal from the representative voter’s point of view. We show that when parties are office motivated the voting rule should encourage parties to collect...