IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-21-01126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can fact-checkers discipline the government?

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel S. Santos

    (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul)

  • Marcelo C. Griebeler

    (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul)

Abstract

We study the potential of a fact-checker to deter a government from lying. The government wants to increase its acceptance by announcing that the state of the economy is good. The fact-checker must decide whether to check or not the government's announcement and then send a report to the public. We show that there is no separating equilibrium in which the government always reveals the true state of the economy. Moreover, there exist equilibria in which the government always announces that the state of the economy is good. This happens if the fact-checker has low credibility relative to that of the government. Our findings suggest that actions that discredit fact-checking agencies, such as calling them ``fake news", increase the chances of lying equilibria. If we allow mixed strategies, our analysis shows that, under quite intuitive conditions, the fact-checker can partially discipline the government.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel S. Santos & Marcelo C. Griebeler, 2022. "Can fact-checkers discipline the government?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1498-1509.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-01126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2022/Volume42/EB-22-V42-I3-P125.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 2023. "Electoral competition with fake news," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Gilens, Martin, 2001. "Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(2), pages 379-396, June.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bucciol, Alessandro, 2018. "False claims in politics: Evidence from the US," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 196-210.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen, 1997. "Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510944, April.
    6. Azzimonti, Marina & Fernandes, Marcos, 2023. "Social media networks, fake news, and polarization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    7. Sheen, Greg Chih-Hsin, 2021. "Media with reputational concerns: yes men or watchdogs?," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 345-364, April.
    8. Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler, 2015. "The Effect of Fact‐Checking on Elites: A Field Experiment on U.S. State Legislators," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(3), pages 628-640, July.
    9. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    10. Yiangos Papanastasiou, 2020. "Fake News Propagation and Detection: A Sequential Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1826-1846, May.
    11. Kris Hartley & Minh Khuong Vu, 2020. "Fighting fake news in the COVID-19 era: policy insights from an equilibrium model," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(4), pages 735-758, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michele Cantarella & Nicolo' Fraccaroli & Roberto Volpe, 2019. "Does fake news affect voting behaviour?," Department of Economics 0146, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    2. McNamara, Trent & Mosquera, Roberto, 2024. "The political divide: The case of expectations and preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    3. Denter, Philipp & Ginzburg, Boris, 2021. "Troll Farms and Voter Disinformation," MPRA Paper 109634, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Germano, Fabrizio & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2020. "Opinion dynamics via search engines (and other algorithmic gatekeepers)," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    5. Yohei Yamaguchi & Ken Yahagi, 2024. "Law enforcement and political misinformation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(1), pages 3-36, January.
    6. Lergetporer, Philipp & Woessmann, Ludger, 2023. "Earnings information and public preferences for university tuition: Evidence from representative experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    7. Bowen, T. Renee & Galperti, Simone & Dmitriev, Danil, 2021. "Learning from Shared News: When Abundant Information Leads to Belief Polarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 15789, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Tuval Danenberg & Drew Fudenberg, 2024. "Endogenous Attention and the Spread of False News," Papers 2406.11024, arXiv.org.
    9. Lergetporer, Philipp & Woessmann, Ludger, 2019. "The Political Economy of Higher Education Finance: How Information and Design Affect Public Preferences for Tuition," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 145, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Gonzalo Cisternas & Jorge Vásquez, 2022. "Misinformation in Social Media: The Role of Verification Incentives," Staff Reports 1028, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. Ozan Candogan & Kimon Drakopoulos, 2020. "Optimal Signaling of Content Accuracy: Engagement vs. Misinformation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 497-515, March.
    12. Bucciol, Alessandro, 2018. "False claims in politics: Evidence from the US," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 196-210.
    13. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2019. "Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media," NBER Working Papers 25500, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Mohamed Mostagir & James Siderius, 2022. "Learning in a Post-Truth World," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2860-2868, April.
    15. Kris Hartley & Minh Khuong Vu, 2020. "Fighting fake news in the COVID-19 era: policy insights from an equilibrium model," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(4), pages 735-758, December.
    16. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2018. "Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media," Papers 1809.05901, arXiv.org.
    17. Vicente Javier Clemente-Suárez & Eduardo Navarro-Jiménez & Juan Antonio Simón-Sanjurjo & Ana Isabel Beltran-Velasco & Carmen Cecilia Laborde-Cárdenas & Juan Camilo Benitez-Agudelo & Álvaro Bustamante-, 2022. "Mis–Dis Information in COVID-19 Health Crisis: A Narrative Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-24, April.
    18. Garz, Marcel & Szucs, Ferenc, 2023. "Algorithmic selection and supply of political news on Facebook," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Huynh, Toan Luu Duc & Foglia, Matteo & Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Angelini, Eliana, 2021. "Feverish sentiment and global equity markets during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1088-1108.
    20. Jost, Peter J. & Pünder, Johanna & Schulze-Lohoff, Isabell, 2020. "Fake news - Does perception matter more than the truth?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fact-check; Misinformation; Signaling Game; Political Economy.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-01126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.