Logic and Effects of Rational Ignorance. The Theory of Public Choice (PDF)

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Economics - Other, grade: 3, University of Münster (Institut für Ökonomische Bilödung), course: Public Choice Theory, language: English, abstract: Many political failure arguments implicitly assume that voters are irrational. The main part of this paper is going to show that this assumption is plausible. This paper will show why voters prefer to be ignorant, what logic motivates this behavior, what effects this ignorance could or may have in election results.

The focus of this paper is to try to understand what issue those behaviors may bring to electoral systems and to try to demonstrate what irrational ignorance really is. Josh Billings (in Caruth and Ehrlich 1988, P.205) said "The trouble with people is not that they don't know, but that they know so much that they ain't so"; arguing with this citation, we could conclude that rational ignorance does not happen because of a lack of information, but because of a voluntary refusal of being informed. The subject won't be informed because he doesn't see any use in this information.

Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide. Rational ignorance can be found most often in the case of general elections, when the voter considers the probability of his vote changing the outcome to be pretty small. Those voters will definitely not cast their vote.