Willful Ignorance in a World of Biased Misinformation
نویسندگان
چکیده
Suppose individuals face a claim of uncertain validity and can only obtain more information from sources known to sometimes report biased misinformation for or against the claim. In such an environment, it is optimal for Bayesian expected utility maximizers to select the source biased toward their current behavior even if they know that source more frequently reports misinformation than an oppositely biased one. Moreover, if some misinformation in reporting is inevitable, it may be optimal for one information source to report misinformation frequently, while the source on the other side will report as minimal misinformation as possible. Thanks to seminar participants at UC-Irvine, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and participants at the 2013 American Law and Economics Association Meetings for helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. Thanks to the Lowe Institute for Political Economy for nancial help on this project.
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