IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt2tw043ff.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Candidate Quality, Pressure Group Endorsements, And The Nature Of Political Advertising

Author

Listed:
  • Wittman, Donald

Abstract

Candidates may vary in quality, where quality is some characteristic orthogonal to policy. This "simple modification" has for the most part defied integration into the Downsian framework. Here we add the following complicating factors. We consider the possibility that there are uninformed voters who are ignorant of the candidates' relative quality. However, a pressure group with inside information regarding the quality of the candidates may endorse one of the candidates as the high-quality candidate. We assume that the uninformed voters behave rationally in the presence of this endorsement. We show that campaign endorsements by the pressure group are generally welfare improving even though the pressure group takes advantage of its private information.

Suggested Citation

  • Wittman, Donald, 2005. "Candidate Quality, Pressure Group Endorsements, And The Nature Of Political Advertising," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2tw043ff, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt2tw043ff
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2tw043ff.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea Prat, 2002. "Campaign Advertising and Voter Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 999-1017.
    2. Donald Wittman, 2005. "Valence characteristics, costly policy and the median-crossing property: A diagrammatic exposition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 365-382, September.
    3. Lohmann, Susanne, 1998. "An Information Rationale for the Power of Special Interests," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(4), pages 809-827, December.
    4. Baron, David P., 1994. "Electoral Competition with Informed and Uninformed Voters," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 33-47, March.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1996. "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(2), pages 265-286.
    6. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Political Competition with Campaign Contributions and Informative Advertising," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 772-804, September.
    7. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Pareto-Improving Campaign Finance Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 628-655, June.
    8. Elhanan Helpman & Gene M. Grossman, 1999. "Competing for Endorsements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 501-524, June.
    9. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 131-161, March.
    10. Prat, Andrea, 2002. "Campaign Spending with Office-Seeking Politicians, Rational Voters, and Multiple Lobbies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 162-189, March.
    11. Mueller, Dennis C & Stratmann, Thomas, 1994. "Informative and Persuasive Campaigning," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(1-2), pages 55-77, October.
    12. Cukierman, Alex, 1991. "Asymmetric Information and the Electoral Momentum of Public Opinion Polls," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 181-213, May.
    13. Ashworth, Scott, 2006. "Campaign Finance and Voter Welfare with Entrenched Incumbents," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(1), pages 55-68, February.
    14. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Snyder, James M, Jr, 2000. "Valence Politics and Equilibrium in Spatial Election Models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(3-4), pages 327-336, June.
    15. David Austen-Smith, 1987. "Interest groups, campaign contributions, and probabilistic voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 123-139, January.
    16. Roger Congleton, 1989. "Campaign finances and political platforms: The economics of political controversy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 101-118, August.
    17. Grofman, Bernard & Norrander, Barbara, 1990. "Efficient Use of Reference Group Cues in a Single Dimension," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 213-227, March.
    18. Lupia, Arthur, 1992. "Busy Voters, Agenda Control, and the Power of Information," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 390-403, June.
    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. Hans Gersbach, 2014. "Campaigns, political mobility, and communication," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 31-49, October.
    2. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Formal Theories of Special Interest Influence," SocArXiv 47e26, Center for Open Science.
    3. Lourdes Rojas Rubio, 2022. "Leader influence on Politics," THEMA Working Papers 2022-16, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Ganesh Manjhi & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2019. "A Dynamic Analysis of Special Interest Politics and Electoral Competition," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 142-164, March.
    5. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2014. "The Voters' Curses: The Upsides and Downsides of Political Engagement," MPRA Paper 53482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Nicolas Motz, 2019. "Who emerges from smoke-filled rooms? Political parties and candidate selection," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(1), pages 161-196, January.
    7. Michael K Miller, 2011. "Seizing the mantle of change: Modeling candidate quality as effectiveness instead of valence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 52-68, January.
    8. Simone Righi, 2015. "Campaign Spending and Rents in a Probabilistic Voting Model," Department of Economics 0073, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    9. Daniel Houser & Thomas Stratmann, 2008. "Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 215-239, July.
    10. Donald Wittman, 2005. "Valence characteristics, costly policy and the median-crossing property: A diagrammatic exposition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 365-382, September.
    11. Arkangel M Cordero & Stewart R Miller, 2019. "Political party tenure and MNE location choices," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(6), pages 973-997, August.
    12. Donald Wittman, 2009. "How Pressure Groups Activate Voters and Move Candidates Closer to the Median," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1324-1343, October.
    13. Panova Elena, 2011. "Electoral Endorsements and Campaign Contributions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-25, February.
    14. Thomas Stratmann, 2005. "Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 135-156, July.
    15. Manjhi, Ganesh & Mehra, Meeta Keswani, 2017. "Dynamics of the Economics of Special Interest Politics," Working Papers 17/206, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    16. Shane Singh, 2014. "Linear and quadratic utility loss functions in voting behavior research," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(1), pages 35-58, January.
    17. Platikanova, Petya, 2017. "Investor-legislators: Tax holiday for politically connected firms," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 380-398.
    18. repec:osf:socarx:47e26_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Evrenk, Haldun & Lambie-Hanson, Timothy & Xu, Yourong, 2013. "Party-bosses vs. party-primaries: Quality of legislature under different selectorates," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 168-182.

    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. Donald Wittman, 2009. "How Pressure Groups Activate Voters and Move Candidates Closer to the Median," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1324-1343, October.
    2. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    3. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    4. Cagé, Julia & Bekkouche, Yasmine, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2ahul47tb09rvqfl9eelv7o5ca is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10lirmbd5p8h4ae52oi51b4cka is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Stephen Coate, 2003. "Power-hungry Candidates, Policy Favors, and Pareto Improving Campaign Finance Policy," NBER Working Papers 9601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Matthew T. Cole & Ivan Pastine & Tuvana Pastine, 2018. "Incumbency Advantage in an Electoral Contest," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 49(4), pages 419-436.
    13. Christoph Vanberg, 2005. "“One Man, One Dollar”? Examining the equalization argument in support of campaign contribution limits," Public Economics 0512001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Satoshi Kasamatsu & Daiki Kishishita, 2022. "Informative campaigning in multidimensional politics: The role of naïve voters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(1), pages 78-106, January.
    15. Hans Gersbach, 2014. "Campaigns, political mobility, and communication," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 31-49, October.
    16. Thomas Bassetti & Filippo Pavesi, 2017. "Electoral Contributions And The Cost Of Unpopularity," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1771-1791, October.
    17. Vanberg, Christoph, 2008. ""One Man, One Dollar"? Campaign contribution limits, equal influence, and political communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 514-531, April.
    18. Ganesh Manjhi & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2019. "A Dynamic Analysis of Special Interest Politics and Electoral Competition," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 142-164, March.
    19. Hideo Konishi & Chen-Yu Pan, 2020. "Silent promotion of agendas: campaign contributions and ideological polarization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 93-117, January.
    20. Alexei Zakharov, 2009. "A model of candidate location with endogenous valence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 347-366, March.
    21. Snyder Jr., James M. & Ting, Michael M., 2008. "Interest groups and the electoral control of politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 482-500, April.
    22. Daniel Houser & Thomas Stratmann, 2008. "Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 215-239, July.
    23. Thanh Le & Erkan Yalcin, 2023. "Lobbying, political competition and the welfare effect of campaign contribution tax," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(2), pages 158-179, May.
    24. Bruno Carvalho, 2021. "Campaign Spending in Local Elections: the Effects of Public Funding," Working Papers ECARES 2021-30, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    25. Sobbrio, Francesco, 2009. "Indirect Lobbying and Media Bias," MPRA Paper 18215, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    26. Börner, Kira, 2004. "Political Economy Reasons for Government Inertia: The Role of Interest Groups in the Case of Access to Medicines," Discussion Papers in Economics 313, University of Munich, Department of Economics.

    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:cdl:ucscec:qt2tw043ff. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.html .

    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.