We analyze an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is better for them. Voters can, however, acquire some costly information about the alternatives. As the number of voters increases, individual investment in political information declines to zero. However, the election outcome is likely to correspond to the interest of the majority if the marginal cost of information acquisition approaches zero as the information acquired becomes nearly irrelevant. Under certain conditions, the election outcome corresponds to the interests of the majority with probability approaching one. Thus, "rationally ignorant" voters are consistent with a well-informed electorate. JEL D72, D82.

We take a game-theoretic approach to the analysis of juries by modelling voting as a game of incomplete information. Rather than the usual assumption of two possible signals (one indicating guilt, the other innocence), we allow jurors to perceive a full spectrum of signals. We o®er three main results. First, given any voting rule requiring ā xed fraction of votes to convict, we characterize the unique symmetric equilibrium of the game. Second, we obtain a condition under which unanimity rule exhibits a bias toward convicting the innocent. Third, we prove a \jury theorem" for the continuous signal model: as the size of the jury increases, the probability of making a mistaken judgment goes to zero for every voting rule, except unanimity rule; for unanimity rule, the probability of a mistake is bounded strictly above zero.

We develop a theory of media slant as a systematic filtering of political news that reduces multidimensional politics to the one-dimensional space perceived by voters. Economic and political choices are interdependent in our theory: expected electoral results influence economic choices, and economic choices in turn influence voting behavior. In a two-candidate election, we show that media favoring the frontrunner will focus on issues unlikely to deliver a surprise, while media favoring the underdog will gamble for resurrection. We characterize the socially optimal slant and show it coincides with the one favored by the underdog under a variety of circumstances. Balanced media, giving each issue equal coverage, may be worse for voters than partisan media. 1. "The space in which political parties compete can be of highly variable structure. Just as the parties may be perceived and evaluated on several dimensions, so the dimensions that are salient to 4. As discussed later on, this result can be nicely contrasted with the "issue ownership" view of Petrocik (1996) and others.

ABSTRACT. We model electoral competition between two parties in a winner-take-all election. Parties choose strategically first their platforms and then their campaign spending under aggregate uncertainty about voters' preferences. We use the model to examine why campaign spending in the United States has increased at the same time that politics has become more polarized. We find that the popular explanation -better targeting of campaign spending -is not a likely explanation. While better targeting does lead to greater spending, it leads to less polarization. Instead we argue that the likely explanation is that voters preferences have become more volatile. This will both raise campaign spending and increase polarization. At the same time it is consistent with the observation that voters have become less committed to the two parties.

We survey the literature on dynamic elections in the traditional settings of spatial preferences and rent seeking under perfect and imperfect monitoring of politicians. We define stationary electoral equilibrium, which encompasses notions used by Barro (1973), Ferejohn (1986), Banks and Sundaram (1998), and others. We show that repeated elections mitigate the commitment problems of politicians and voters, and that a responsive democracy result holds under general conditions. Term limits, however, attenuate the responsiveness finding. We also touch on related applied work, and we point to areas for fruitful future research, including the connection between dynamic models of politics and economics. ( JEL D72, D82, D83)