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

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  • 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
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Lourdes Rojas Rubio, 2022. "Leader influence on Politics," THEMA Working Papers 2022-16, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    7. 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.
    8. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2014. "The Voters' Curses: The Upsides and Downsides of Political Engagement," MPRA Paper 53482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Thomas Stratmann, 2005. "Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 135-156, July.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Shane Singh, 2014. "Linear and quadratic utility loss functions in voting behavior research," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(1), pages 35-58, January.
    16. Platikanova, Petya, 2017. "Investor-legislators: Tax holiday for politically connected firms," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 380-398.
    17. 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".
    18. 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.

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