IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v153y2012i1p55-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revealing information in electoral competition

Author

Listed:
  • Mike Felgenhauer

Abstract

Electoral competition between two expert candidates may lead to inefficient platform choices. The present paper studies electoral competition between two experts and a third uninformed candidate. The latter behaves populistically. This seemingly useless candidate restores efficiency. The paper then endogenizes information acquisition. If the information acquisition costs are low, then equilibria with (i) three expert candidates or (ii) two experts and one uninformed candidate may arise. There are costs such that the latter equilibrium is the only pure strategy equilibrium in which information is transmitted. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Felgenhauer, 2012. "Revealing information in electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 55-68, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:153:y:2012:i:1:p:55-68
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9773-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-011-9773-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-011-9773-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Schultz, 1996. "Polarization and Inefficient Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(2), pages 331-344.
    2. Schultz, Christian, 1995. " The Politics of Persuasion When Voters Are Rational," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(3), pages 357-368, September.
    3. Warneryd, Karl, 1994. "Partisanship as Information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 80(3-4), pages 371-380, September.
    4. Frisell, Lars, 2009. "A theory of self-fulfilling political expectations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 715-720, June.
    5. Mike Felgenhauer & Hans Peter Grüner, 2008. "Committees and Special Interests," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(2), pages 219-243, April.
    6. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    7. Heidhues, Paul & Lagerlof, Johan, 2003. "Hiding information in electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 48-74, January.
    8. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    9. Cukierman, Alex & Tommasi, Mariano, 1998. "When Does It Take a Nixon to Go to China?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 180-197, March.
    10. Jason G. Cummins & Ingmar Nyman, 2005. "The Dark Side of Competitive Pressure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 361-397, Summer.
    11. Jean-François Laslier & Karine Straeten, 2004. "Electoral competition under imperfect information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(2), pages 419-446, August.
    12. Baron, David P., 2006. "Persistent media bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 1-36, January.
    13. Martinelli, Cesar, 2001. "Elections with Privately Informed Parties and Voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(1-2), pages 147-167, July.
    14. Harrington, Joseph E, Jr, 1993. "Economic Policy, Economic Performance, and Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 27-42, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Foucart, Renaud & Schmidt, Robert C., 2019. "(Almost) efficient information transmission in elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 147-165.
    2. Robert C. Schmidt, 2015. "The political economy of climate policy," Working Papers 2015015, Berlin Doctoral Program in Economics and Management Science (BDPEMS).
    3. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2016. "Information in elections: Do third inflexible candidates always promote truthful behavior?," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 307-339, August.

    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. Heidhues, Paul & Lagerlof, Johan, 2003. "Hiding information in electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 48-74, January.
    2. Gratton, Gabriele, 2014. "Pandering and electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 163-179.
    3. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2016. "Information in elections: Do third inflexible candidates always promote truthful behavior?," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 307-339, August.
    4. Andina-Díaz, Ascensión & García-Martínez, José A., 2020. "Reputation and news suppression in the media industry," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 240-271.
    5. Foucart, Renaud & Schmidt, Robert C., 2019. "(Almost) efficient information transmission in elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 147-165.
    6. Chan, Jimmy & Suen, Wing, 2009. "Media as watchdogs: The role of news media in electoral competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 799-814, October.
    7. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2016. "Special interests and the media: Theory and an application to climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 91-108.
    8. McMurray, Joseph, 2022. "Polarization and pandering in common-interest elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 150-161.
    9. Thomas Jensen, 2015. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(5), pages 702-723, October.
    10. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2016. "The cost of doing the right thing. A model of populism with rent-seeking politicians and the economic crisis," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis1602, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    11. Zhang, Qiaoxi, 2020. "Vagueness in multidimensional proposals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 307-328.
    12. Cesar Martinelli & Akihiko Matsui, 1999. "Policy Reversals: Electoral Competition with Privately Informed Parties," Working Papers 9905, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM, revised Jan 2000.
    13. Thomas Jensen, 2013. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Discussion Papers 13-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Schultz, Christian, 2002. "Policy biases with voters' uncertainty about the economy and the government," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 487-506, March.
    15. Thomas Jensen, 2009. "Electoral Competition when Candidates are Better Informed than Voters," EPRU Working Paper Series 2009-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    16. Andrea Gallice & Edoardo Grillo, 2022. "Legitimize through Endorsement," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 680 JEL Classification: C, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    17. Kemal Kivanç Aköz & Cemal Eren Arbatli, 2016. "Information Manipulation in Election Campaigns," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 181-215, July.
    18. Frisell, Lars, 2004. "Populism," Working Paper Series 166, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    19. Kemal K?vanc Akoz & Cemal Eren Arbatli, 2013. "Manipulated voters in competitive election campaigns," HSE Working papers WP BRP 31/EC/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. Lydia Mechtenberg, 2007. "Ideology Without Ideologists," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2007-021, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elections; Information transmission; Information acquisition; D72; D78; D82;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:kap:pubcho:v:153:y:2012:i:1:p:55-68. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.