Exam 31: Public Choice and Special Interest Group Politics

A state of rational ignorance

Exhibit 31-1 -Refer to Exhibit 31-l. The exhibit shows the breakdown of benefits and costs for a four-person town of a proposed $1,200 addition in books to the public library. The members of the community get to vote on the project at hand, and the majority rules. Given the data, the $1,200 will

"Logrolling" is

Rational ignorance exists because voters are apathetic.

When it comes to voting in a presidential election, we would expect, ceteris paribus,

A politician running for political office does not speak in general terms, does not try to move to the middle of the political spectrum, and does not take polls, therefore it follows that

One implication of the median voter model is that candidates running for political office take polls because

-Refer to Situation 31-l. At the time the total yearly salary (including all the benefits) of the average auto worker was no more than $50,000 per year, and the cost per job saved was estimated at $160,000 per worker per year. We can conclude that

Suppose candidate A is conservative and candidate B is liberal and both are currently positioned away from the "middle ground" toward their respective ends of the political spectrum. We would expect that as the campaign draws closer to election day,

Public choice theorists assert that persons who change jobs from, say, a government position to a business position, sometimes alter their work behavior and attitudes because

Three persons, A, B, and C, will use a simple majority vote to determine whether some good will be purchased. Each person's "tax share" of the purchase price of the good will be $25. Person A receives $30 worth of benefits from the good, person B receives $26 worth of benefits from the good, and person C receives $2 worth of benefits from the good. It follows that __________ person(s) will vote for the good, __________ person(s) will vote against it, and that the outcome is __________.

Rational ignorance exists primarily because

It has often been remarked that Democratic candidates are more liberal in the Democratic primaries and Republican candidates are more conservative in the Republican primaries than either is in the general election. The explanation for this is most probably that

Would we expect the "average" person to take more time to learn about the car he or she is considering purchasing or about the issues in the upcoming U.S. Senate race in his or her state?

Special-interest groups often engage in rent-seeking, which tends to provide a net benefit to society.

Which of the following predictions is consistent with public choice theory?

A public choice theorist believes that

Why do many prospective voters choose to watch sports on television rather than watching the news or political roundtables? In your answer, be sure to mention the role played by rational ignorance.

Special interest groups are subsets of the general population that

A subset of the general population that holds an intense preference with respect to a particular government activity is called a