Abstract: Change may be socially beneficial, but causing change requires enough people to take a costly action---a classic collective action problem. More similar information about the benefits of regime change may help people coordinate and mobilize toward a shared goal, but it can also exacerbate free-riding. We propose a notion of information similarity to characterize when more similar information hinders or facilitates regime change. We show that more similar information helps overthrow stronger regimes but enables weaker regimes to survive. We apply our framework to collective action settings such as protests and voting in committees.
Presentation (by one of the authors): University of Chicago, Collegio Alberto, Columbia Theory meeting, Essex University, Kelley School of Business, Oxford University, Penn State University, Stony Brook Game Theory meeting, SITE Political Economy, University College London, University of Warwick, Yale University, Aston Business School