Kyllä kansa tietää

Authors

• Hannu Nurmi

Abstract

More than two hundred years ago the Marquis de Condorcet argued that under relatively, plausible assumptions the probability that the majority of jurors is right exceeds that of any single juror. On the other hand, the majority can also be less competent (in the sense of being less likely right) than any juror. These observations can easily be demonstrated in dichotomous choice situations, provided that the jurors are independent of each other. We discuss the applicability of Condorcet’s jury theorem to situations where the individual competences of the jurors are different from each other. We also trace the implications of dependencies of jurors or voters to the competence of the majority.