摘要：A policymaker may have concerns about ``slippery slope'' when she evaluates a reform: For some unknown distribution of agents' preferences, the reform paves the way to future undesirable outcomes. We propose a simple model to investigate whether informal elections, including protests, polls, and non-binding voting, can aggregate dispersed information about the desirability of reform in the presence of such concerns. We find that in any equilibrium where the reform occurs with positive probability, the policymaker uses a non-monotonic rule: She reforms if and only if turnout in the informal election is neither too low nor too high. This non-monotonicity is obstructive: We identify conditions under which effective information aggregation is impossible.

嘉宾介绍：马子真，武汉大学经管学院特聘副研究员，博士毕业于罗彻斯特大学经济系。研究兴趣为博弈论于分析群体决策或群体行为的应用，研究成果发表于Journal of Economic Theory。曾担任Econometrica及Review of Economic Studies匿名审稿人。