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The War of Information

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  • Gul, Faruk

    (Princeton University)

  • Pesendorfer, Wolfgang

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

We analyze political campaigns between two parties with opposing interests. Parties pay a cost to provide information to a voter who chooses the policy. The information flow is continuous and stops when parties quit. The parties' actions are strategic substitutes: a party with a lower cost provides more but its opponent provides less information. For voters, the parties' actions are complements and raising the low-cost party's cost may be beneficial. Asymmetric information adds a signaling component in the form of a belief-threshold beyond which unfavorable information is offset by the informed party's decision to continue campaigning.

Suggested Citation

  • Gul, Faruk & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2010. "The War of Information," Papers 9-13-2010, Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:prirpe:9-13-2010
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    File URL: https://www.princeton.edu/~pesendor/warinfo.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Austen-Smith, David, 1994. "Strategic Transmission of Costly Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 955-963, July.
    2. Godfrey Keller & Sven Rady & Martin Cripps, 2005. "Strategic Experimentation with Exponential Bandits," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 39-68, January.
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