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Reputation and Rhetoric in Elections

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Author Info
Enriqueta Aragones () (Institut d’Analisi Economica, CSIC)
Thomas R. Palfrey () (Departments of Politics and Economics, Princeton University)
Andrew Postlewaite () (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

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Abstract

We analyze conditions under which campaign rhetoric may affect the beliefs of the voters over what policy will be implemented by the winning candidate of an election. We develop a model of repeated elections with complete information in which candidates are purely ideological. We analyze an equilibrium in which voters' strategies involve a credible threat to punish candidates who renege of their campaign promises, and all campaign promises are believed by voters, and honored by candidates. We obtain that the degree to which promises are credible in equilibrium is an increasing function of the value of a candidate's reputation. We also show how the model can be extended so that rhetoric also signals candidate quality.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania in its series PIER Working Paper Archive with number 05-021.

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Length: 50 pages
Date of creation: 11 Apr 2005
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Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:05-021

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Related research
Keywords: Repeated Elections; Commitment; Reputation;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Avinash Dixit & Gene M. Grossman & Faruk Gul, 2000. "The Dynamics of Political Compromise," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 531-568, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2003. "Spatial Competition Between Two Candidates of Different Quality: The Effects of Candidate Ideology and Private Information," Working Papers 1169, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Banks, Jeffrey S., 1990. "A model of electoral competition with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 309-325, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. John Duggan & Mark Fey, 2006. "Repeated Downsian electoral competition," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 39-69, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Jeffrey Banks & John Duggan, 2001. "A Multidimensional Model of Repeated Elections," Wallis Working Papers WP24, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
  6. Alesina, Alberto, 1988. "Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 796-805, September.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Matteo Triossi, 2006. "Reliability and Responsibility: A Theory of Endogenous Commitment," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 21, Collegio Carlo Alberto. [Downloadable!]
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