Would rational voters acquire costly information?

We analyze an election in which voters are uncertain about which of two alternatives is better for them. Voters can acquire some costly information about the alternatives. In agreement with Downs's rational ignorance hypothesis. individual investment in political information declines to zero as the number of voters increases. However. if the marginal cost of information is near zero for nearly irrelevant information, there is a sequence of equilibria such that the election outcome is likely to correspond to the interests of the majority for arbitrarily large numbers of voters. Thus. "rationally ignorant" voters are consistent with a well-informed electorate. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.