Similarity of Information and Collective Action

Abstract

The nature of the collective action problem, such as a protest or costly voting in a committee, is that agents have incentives to coordinate and free-ride. If agents see more similar information, it can facilitate coordination but exacerbate free-riding. We propose an order of information similari and characterize this trade-off. We show that more similar information helps agents achieve a common goal when reaching the goal is sufficiently difficult, but has the opposite effect, otherwise.